


Fool's Requiem

by Mawkish_Warden



Category: Senjou no Valkyria | Valkyria Chronicles
Genre: Band of Brothers & Sisters, Flashbacks, Gen, Post-Game, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28753284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mawkish_Warden/pseuds/Mawkish_Warden
Summary: Months after the end of the most devastating conflict in Europa's history, the crew of the HMS Centurion is finally extracted from the Imperial capital. For many, the fighting is over. But not all...For some, their war's end has yet to come.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. Prologue – If it’s Stupid, and it Works…

The rattle of a machine gun filled Gertrude’s ears as she braced herself against the brick house. Bullets hissed and pinged across the street, as she tried to peek out and get a visual on the offending gunner. Behind her, she was aware of around a dozen bodies catching up to her and similarly hugging the wall.

“What do you see, Private?” yelled a voice. It was Sergeant Raz, commander of Easy Platoon’s 1st Infantry Squad.

“Hostile machine gun at my 1,” she said. “Top floor of brown two storey building, window closest to us. Sandbags and at least ten foot soldiers down the road at around 70m.”

With the Battle of the Siegval Line having concluded a week ago, their push into Imperial territory had accelerated at a near exponential rate. Beyond what had once been the Empire’s impenetrable defence line were a series of small towns that acted as a large buffer zone of little strategic importance, but nevertheless ate up their time and resources. Edinburgh’s Armoured Ranger Corps had been tasked with spearheading the push, with the Federation hoping that their elite units would be able to punch through the relatively small, yet annoyingly delaying, pockets of resistance for the regular forces.

The village of Waldrand had been their latest target, and the fight to capture it was not going well. Scouts had initially reported a minimal Imperial presence in the area, with perhaps no more than a hastily formed militia to stand against the encroaching Federation. Command had accordingly chosen to deploy only two of their regiment’s platoons to pacify the town. Easy had moved in first, while Charlie settled around the perimeter to catch any fleeing hostiles.

The Imperials had waited until they’d reached the centre of the village before firing. Through camouflage, local cooperation, or pure dumb luck, they’d managed to hide a small company of men and equipment from the Federation’s reconnaissance. Now, there were 46 men and women (and 1 dog) caught in the hellish grips of urban warfare.

To Lieutenant Wallace’s credit, he’d ordered them to scatter, find a place to bunker down in, and wait for Charlie Platoon and whoever else was currently scrambling to their aid to bail them out.

Following that, Sergeant Raz had begun to herd his squad out of the killzone, and they’d been going down alleyways and streets, trying to find a square metre that wasn’t being swept by Imperials. By now, they’d run into their third ‘roadblock’, and people were starting to panic.

“Do we have any smoke grenades left?” asked her Sergeant. Most of the platoon’s smokes had been used in the first few minutes of the ambush, giving them much needed concealment against their surprise attackers.

“Yeah, I’ve got one,” said Emmy. For once, it seemed her overly frugal tendencies would actually benefit their squad.

“Nice,” Sergeant Raz grinned. “On my mark, you’re gonna pop it down the road. 10 seconds after it goes off, we’re gonna bum rush the sandbags. Viola and Rosetta, I want you to go for the building with the MG. Sweep both floors, silence that buzzsaw and provide overwatch when the smoke’s gone. Clear?”

“Yes, Sergeant!”

“Alright, toss it, Emmy!”

The shock trooper nodded and moved next to Gertrude. She pulled the pin on the cylinder before drawing her arm back and throwing it around the corner.

They waited for the tell-tale hiss of exhaust from the canister. Half a minute passed, and nothing came out.

“Where’s the smoke?”

“I can’t see it.”

“Fuck me, it was a dud!”

“What do we do, Sarge?”

There were very few times Gertrude had seen Sergeant Raz hesitate. Now was one of them. Surrounded on all sides and being boxed in by a numerically superior enemy, the situation was getting worse by the second. But they didn’t have any options. Go back the way they’d come, and they’d most certainly run into the Imperials they’d left behind. Stay put and have the enemy completely encircle their vulnerable position. Keep moving forward, and they’d get mowed down by the machine…gun…

There was still small arms fire from rifles and submachine guns. But the machine gun itself was silent. Thus far, it had been letting out bursts of hot lead at their building, most likely trying to keep their heads down for infantry to flank them safely. But it hadn’t fired in the last few seconds. She chanced another look around the corner and saw why.

“They’re reloading!”

They had a small time frame. But what to do with it? There was still the squad blocking the road. They couldn’t just–

“I got it!”

A man rushed past her. A man with dark blue hair, carrying a submachine gun and wearing a grin of confidence.

But it wasn’t Sergeant Raz.

“Zaiga?”

In equal parts bewilderment and horror, she gawked as her squadmate sprinted into the open street. He hadn’t been fired on yet. Whether that was because the Imperials were similarly taken aback by his audacity, or the hand of God had neutered their ability to think, she didn’t know. What she did know was that he was going to die.

Apparently, Sergeant Raz came to the same conclusion.

“Move out, covering fire!” he roared. The squad jumped into action, less than two seconds after Zaiga had elected to go on his own initiative. They rushed out of their hiding spot, weapons raised and firing almost wildly at their foe while trying to find better cover.

It didn’t take long for the Imperials to shake off their surprise and return the favour. A round snapped dangerously close to her head, before the offending shooter was toppled by a bullet from Leonhardt’s rifle.

She nodded a quick thanks to the sniper. After hunkering down behind an abandoned cart, she shifted her lance so that its stock was properly cushioned against her shoulder.

The M2EQ was designed for anti-armour purposes. But, considering that her only other option was a pistol, which was decidedly unsuited for anything outside of 50m, she and the other lancers in 1st Squad would have to contribute to the fight in their own way. The machine gun’s crew still hadn’t fired yet. Through the window, she glimpsed a soldier fumbling with a belt of ammunition, costing the Imperials precious seconds. She could try aiming for them, but the angle of the window meant they were too small a target for her to reliably hit. No…she needed to aim for the infantry on the street.

All the while, Zaiga was still running, his legs pumping to close the distance between him and the machine gun. The rest of 1st Squad was doing what it could to draw the Imperials’ attention, but the Darcsen was rapidly becoming a priority target for them. She wouldn’t give them the chance to shoot him. She couldn’t.

Glancing back to yell a quick, “Backblast, clear!” Gertrude lined up her lance’s rear and front sights, then squeezed the trigger. With a loud bang that had an uncanny resemblance to a shotgun blast, a rocket was launched from the main tube, flying across the street in the blink of an eye. Its high explosive tip found purchase in the sandbags she had spotted earlier. Shrapnel exploded from the warhead, pinging off the stone road and slicing through a trio of screaming Imperials.

She felt a flash of satisfaction at the direct hit, but it was quickly overridden by concern, as she watched Zaiga keep running.

She hastily moved to insert another rocket, but in her mind, she knew she wouldn’t be able to fire another round in time. It was now up to the rest of 1st Squad to cover Zaiga, and up to Zaiga himself to stay alive and do whatever the hell he needed to do.

As she hefted over 15kg of steel and wood back onto her shoulder, she saw Zaiga reaching for a stick grenade (‘potato mashers’, they called them). Unscrewing the metal cap off its lower end, he yanked on the internal string that would activate the fuse. Bringing his arm back, he threw the grenade.

Almost in slow motion, she watched it soar through the air, holding her breath. When it sailed into the window with the machine gun, she let it out.

And then she saw an enemy lancer aiming at Zaiga.

The ignition of the rocket coincided with the grenade’s explosion and her scream, attempting to warn him of the incoming projectile.

The warhead streaked past the Darcsen, who reflexively twisted to one side, and hit the house behind him. His relative position to the rocket when it impacted ensured he dodged the molten fragmentation, which was mostly restricted to spreading in a frontal cone. Unfortunately, he was still knocked over by the concussive wave, his prone form buried seconds later by rubble from the wall, which had collapsed from the explosion.

* * *

Zaiga groaned as the world swam back into focus. There were veins of light sneaking through a thin layer of brick, mortar and timber on top of him. His ears were filled with a loud, steady ringing and he was sure his body was covered in cuts and bruises, never mind that he couldn’t feel them yet. Attempts to move his limbs were met with swift protest from his brain, which still seemed to be in the middle of powering back up.

In the distance (or perhaps it was right next to him, he still hadn’t thrown off the blanket on his senses), he heard voices and footsteps. Then, some of the debris shifted. Bit by bit, everything became brighter, until he was staring at a very worried and _very_ angry Gertrude.

“…ga…al…eal…”

He blinked at her, trying to make out what she was saying. Exasperated with his temporary tinnitus, she eventually just grabbed him by his fatigues and pulled him out of his impromptu hidey hole.

“In here, in here!” he heard someone shout. Voice recognition was still hazy, but at least he could make out the words again.

He became aware of someone lifting him by his feet while Gertrude held him up by the armpits and could only watch as blue skies were replaced by a drab ceiling.

“Set him down, nice and easy.”

As he was lowered onto a couch, the gears in his head finally started turning again, and he recognised the speaker as Aulard.

“Hey, Zaiga. Blink twice if you can hear me.”

“I–“ he coughed out. “I’m good, man.”

“You are most certainly not!” And Gertrude was back with a vengeance. “You dumb, foolish, _incomprehensibly stupid idiot_! What were you thinking, rushing out like that without telling us what you were going to do?”

“No time,” he said. “Had to kill the MG.”

“And in doing so, you nearly got yourself killed!”

“Hey,” he grinned, lifting an arm to make a waving gesture. More of his body was waking up. “All worked out, didn’t it?”

“Well,” Aulard interjected, “we’re still surrounded by what feels like an endless horde of Imperials popping out of every gutter and door we can find. Buuuuut, your little stunt just won us a defensive position, so yeah. Not a bad move.”

Gertrude was having none of it, quickly directing her glare to the engineer. Zaiga moved to touch her arm, and she looked back at him.

“I’m sorry I scared you.”

The fire in her eyes dimmed, and she lowered her head. “It is alright…this is war…And I apologise for yelling at you.”

“No sweat,” he said. “Guess even a badass has to slip up now and then.”

She didn’t smile, but her face lost most of its frown. “Not exactly the word I would describe you with.”

Raz came into view, cutting off the beginnings of their banter. “You good?”

“Yeah, bro,” he grinned. “Just need a minute and I’ll be back in the fight.”

The older Darcsen grinned back. “For the record, that was awesome.”

He swelled with pride–

“I’m still gonna kick your ass when this is over.”

–and deflated in dread. “Shit.”

“Shit’s the right word. Gertrude, I’ll need you with Fleuret and Odin to overlook the street from one of the bedrooms. Aulard, look after Zaiga. If you think he can fight, send him to Rosetta and Emmy near the back entrance to watch for flankers, then head upstairs.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“You got it, Sarge.”

With that, Zaiga was left to muse on what horrible punishment Raz would have in store for him. If Gertrude felt any sympathy for his kicked puppy expression, she didn’t show it.

“Now, now,” she said, patting his head, much to his chagrin. “I am certain Sergeant Raz will grant you whatever mercy you deserve.”

“Yeah, laugh it up,” he grumbled. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Most certainly,” she said. Before she headed for the stairs, she made sure to give him one last piece of her mind. “Do try not to throw your life away in the future.”

“Don’t worry, sis. I’m not going anywhere.”


	2. Looking for Anything More than a Way Home

The first time she saw him at the railing, she thought nothing of it.

It was early February, a few months since the ceasefire had been declared. After almost a year of gruelling combat, abhorrent conditions and innumerable losses, the fighting was over.

Of the thousands of Army, Marine, and Navy personnel committed to Operation Cygnus, less than a hundred of those assigned to the three snow cruisers remained. With the neutering of their A2 bomb at Schwarzgrad, the Empire could have easily swooped in and cut them down. But they hadn’t. Many suspected it had largely been because Lieutenant Colonel Walz and Crymaria had made a strong ‘recommendation’ to Imperial Supreme Command to let the peace, however uneasy or untenable it may appear, last for now.

The surviving crew of the _HMS Centurion_ had been forced to stay in the Imperial capital’s Federation Embassies. When the Empire had started the Second Europan War, they had stormed the diplomatic buildings and arrested anyone associated with their enemy. Over time, the POWs had been released back to their home countries in prisoner exchanges, but the embassies themselves had remained empty for the duration of the conflict.

When the Crystal Sea finally melted, the United Kingdom of Edinburgh had sent Battlegroup Prince of Eirda to transport their people back to Federation territory. Tensions had run high, as some of the world’s largest and most powerful ships stared down each other’s artillery barrels and torpedo tubes. But no one had fired, and Gertrude and her allies had boarded the heavy cruiser, _HMS Unrelenting_ , without incident. Although there had been no official announcement, it was all but confirmed that Easy Platoon would be disbanded. They would all disembark at a port in Gaulis to receive one final debrief, then head their separate ways. At long last, they were going home.

A day had passed since they’d left Schwarzgrad behind, and she had to admit that she was bored. With no objective to strive for, no atmosphere of terror, no schedule to follow on a vessel that was already sufficiently crewed by the Navy, she was beginning to feel a little useless.

She had been taking a leisurely stroll on the main deck, when she’d spotted Zaiga. He was at the ship’s bow, staring over the barrier that prevented sailors from slipping overboard. Gertrude joined him, taking in the view.

She watched the water, its surface broken up by crests, large and small, long and short. She saw them become harder to make out closer to the horizon until eventually, there was only a line of dark blue bordering the skies.

“It is nice to see the ocean in its natural state once more,” she said.

Zaiga turned to look at her, surprised. “Oh…Y-Yeah. I was getting pretty sick of the ice, too.”

Gertrude raised an eyebrow, “Did you not hear me approach?”

“Guess not,” the Darcsen said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry, sis. I was, uh, thinking.”

Gertrude knew that nicknames were often reflective of camaraderie and military life. But having Zaiga refer to her as his sibling when they weren’t even remotely related had taken some getting used to. According to Captain Wallace, it was a sign of great trust for the Darcsen and she’d taken it in stride. If nothing else, it was preferable to being called ‘Gerty’ or ‘princess’.

She tilted her head at his explanation. “What were you thinking about?”

Zaiga didn’t answer her immediately, eyes briefly flicking away from her.

“About what we’re gonna do after we get off at Gaulis.”

Gertrude nodded, “And?”

He gestured at her, “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”

She smiled, although she didn’t feel very happy, “I will return to my family in Hadleigh. Although, I am…not certain I would be able to reacclimatise to a life of nobility.”

Zaiga snorted. “Please, ever since you joined the Corps, you’ve been acting like you’re still living in some fancy mansion. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble upgrading back to a castle.”

“We do not live–“ Gertrude cut herself off, exasperated. No matter how hard she’d tried, she hadn’t shaken Zaiga of the notion that, contrary to his insistence, the Albrights did not have a fortress with walls, a moat, and a portcullis. Apparently, it amused the Darcsen to see her get riled up over such ‘trivial’ details. Although, considering he came from a life in the slums, it might very well be just a friendly source of retribution.

“Insolent commoner,” she mumbled as he snickered. She said it loud enough for him to hear, but the sting of her insults had long ago faded and turned into little more than the occasional affectionate jab. He raised his hands in mock surrender.

“Aight, aight, don’t get your ringlets in a twist.” His tone grew more serious, “When you said you were worried about going back, do you mean…”

The question was left unsaid, but she knew what he’d meant to ask. _Do you mean you’re worried they won’t accept you back?_

Gertrude’s animosity against the Darcsens and lower classes hadn’t come out of nowhere. There had been a life of teaching – indoctrination, one might even call it – to make her believe that, in spite of her honour bound duty to serve the people, some of those people were of…lesser substance. Yet, her tour of service on the Eastern Front had quickly shattered those two decades of conditioning. Whether it be cowering in a foxhole to wait out a barrage, charging across swathes of open land with nothing but a smokescreen for concealment, or even just complaining about the food with one’s squadmates, war had shown her there was no distinction between classes or races. On the front, life and death was the only distinction that mattered.

But could her parents, her siblings, her cousins, and her fellow nobles ever see it that way? She didn’t know. What she did know was that she wouldn’t be able to bear returning to someone, even if they were family, who would disparage the very people she’d shed so much blood, sweat, and tears with.

“I will speak to them,” she said. “But I do not know if they will listen.”

Zaiga nodded. “Yeah…I get it.”

They fell into a silence. Not uncomfortable, but definitely pensive. To distract herself from her upcoming familial woes, Gertrude asked, “What about yourself? What will you do when we drop anchor?”

He shrugged, then locked his hands behind his head, elbows jutting out to the sides. He’d taken to looking back at the water. “I think I’ll re-enlist. There’s still a lotta fight left in the world. And who knows how long the ceasefire will go on for?”

“Indeed,” she agreed.

A more idealistic person may have blanched at Zaiga’s blunt prediction. But Gertrude understood. Hostilities may have ended, but the Atlantic Federation had not won. Having been on the defensive from the beginning, it had lost an alarming amount of land, equipment, and people to the Imperial Alliance. Outnumbered and outgunned, even with economic and industrial support from the United States of Vinland, the Federation could never have hoped to win conventionally.

As such, they had relied on Hail Mary after Hail Mary. Operation Northern Cross had required their armies to march through over 1,500km of Imperial territory to lay siege to their capital. Tasked with an insurmountable goal, It was no wonder their main push hadn’t been able to keep up the momentum. Operation Cygnus had attempted to detonate an unprecedentedly powerful bomb in that same capital with an escort of just three snow cruisers as its delivery system. It had been a suicide mission in all but name, and the logical extreme in the concept of sacrifice, with no actual guarantee that the Empire wouldn’t have just moved its seat of command elsewhere and kept fighting. It was nothing short of a miracle that Easy Platoon had survived the war relatively unscathed. For now, they had achieved peace, but only by figuratively holding a gun to the Imperial leadership’s head. A gun, with the sinking of the _Centurion_ , and their ultimate refusal to force Angie to use the Final Flame, which they no longer had.

Both sides would be licking their wounds, the Federation substantially more so than the Empire. However, when the dust settled, and either side decided they’d recovered enough…

Suffice to say that very few, if any, didn’t anticipate a Third Europan War.

“I do worry, though,” she said, not entirely disingenuously, but with enough lightness to indicate she was joking.

“Yeah?” said Zaiga. “Why’s that?”

“A soldier who had braved so many battles and seen mankind at both its greatest highs and most fearsome lows, so willing to run back into the fray, when he had the choice to leave,” Gertrude answered. “Some might think you have a death wish.”

When he didn’t respond, Gertrude looked back at Zaiga. She saw something…strange. His face had slackened, and his posture was slouched. He’d lowered his head and seemed to be looking at something somehow with both a great intensity and complete disinterest at the same time.

She blinked. “Zaiga?”

He showed no sign of having heard her. She reached out and tapped his shoulder. He jerked upright, as if he’d just woken from a nap he wasn’t supposed to have taken.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “Just spaced out for a bit.”

Gertrude frowned. Zaiga usually wasn’t one to lose focus, especially not in the middle of a conversation. Granted, this hadn’t been the first time. When the _Centurion’s_ survivors had holed up in the embassies, there had been instances when she’d seen the Darcsen sitting in a corner and staring at his hands, or wandering the halls with no real destination in mind. Everyone had been busy back then, trying to contact and coordinate with Federation headquarters, negotiating the post-ceasefire terms with the Empire, and arming up and waiting for the Imperial backstab that never came. But now, they were on a friendly warship, surrounded by her home country’s resolute Navy. They were all safe, and free to let the unwelcome thoughts niggling at the back of their minds surface once more. Thoughts involving phantom gunfire, unexplained chills, sudden twitches, uncertainty, desperation, pain, regret, and above all, loss.

“I’m sorry, Zaiga,” Gertrude said softly. “That was inconsiderate of me. If you want to talk about–”

Almost quicker than she could register it, the old Zaiga returned, arms crossed, smile confident, and form relaxed.

“Thanks, sis,” he said. “But it’s fine, really. I just need some time.”

She held his gaze for a few seconds. On the surface, he looked well. But she couldn’t see beneath that. As an aristocrat, Gertrude was well accustomed to donning a proverbial mask before interacting with others. Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell if Zaiga had genuinely shaken himself back to ‘normality’, or if he was putting on a front. She remembered reading stories where two people in a deep enough relationship could subconsciously read each other’s every emotion. Gertrude was no expert, but she was hard-pressed to find bonds that were stronger than the ones between soldiers, especially squadmates, who had met in and run through the flames of battle. Apparently, as per her inability to see through him, fiction did not mirror fact.

But perhaps it didn’t have to. She’d developed a level of trust with Easy Platoon, with Zaiga, the extent to and nature of which she couldn’t even hope to compare with anyone, even her own flesh and blood. If she could trust him to cover her as she ran to get a better angle on a tank with her lance, she could trust him now to handle whatever trouble he was experiencing and let her know if he needed her help.

Mind made up for the time being, she smiled in a manner that she hoped was reassuring. “Very well. Just know that I am here, if you need me.”

The Darcsen nodded his appreciation, then looked away a bit sheepishly.

“Do you mind if I just stayed here and, well, took in the sights?”

“Of course not,” she said. “Would you…prefer to be by yourself?”

He shrugged again.

“Nah, I’m just worried you might get bored standing around with me, doing nothing.”

“I’d wager that I would be bored, no matter what part of the ship I am on,” Gertrude countered. “There is not an awful lot to do here.”

Zaiga chuckled.

“Yeah, guess you’re right.”

They remained there in silence, this time much more comfortably, and Gertrude felt content to let it be.

* * *

Later that day, she was settling into her bed in one of the ship’s cramped rooms she’d been assigned to share with three other ladies. As she pulled the covers over her body, she couldn’t help but note that, out of all the directions and places he could have been looking, Zaiga seemed to have been particularly interested in staring at the water directly underneath him.


	3. No Prosthetic for an Amputated Spirit

A satisfying breakfast did wonders to start the day on a high note. On an Edinburgh ship that didn’t have to worry about rationing by the minute, as the _Centurion_ had, the _Unrelenting’s_ kitchen staff had seen fit to commemorate the Sunday morning with a Dokkum breakfast to the crew and passengers. After what had felt like an eternity consuming food that had been canned or otherwise packaged to last until hell froze over, Gertrude heard the momentary hum of a holy choir sound off in her head.

She was seated at the mess hall opposite Zaiga, taking a moment to just inhale the lovely scent of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, sausage, tomatoes and toast, before digging in. It was missing the baked beans, but she could forgive the chefs for their transgression, just this once. On her left and Zaiga’s right were Curtis, Eileen, Hanna and Jascha.

“So,” said Hanna, “this is the food of your people?”

“Yes,” Gertrude said. “It is mainly for special occasions, like New Year’s Day. The ingredients also vary on which region of Edinburgh one finds themselves in.”

“It’s big,” said Curtis, with his usual bluntness, although this was still a marked improvement from his previous approach of speak-only-if-spoken-to-directly-and-oh-god-I-messed-up-what-I-was-going-to-say-again.

“We’re a bit more used to just bread and cheese in the morning,” elaborated Eileen. “But this looks really nice too!”

“Some do treat it as more of a brunch, than breakfast,” acknowledged Gertrude.

“Pretty greasy,” said Hanna, as she chewed on a piece of cured pork. “Though, I heard the US has got a lot of stuff that’s fattier than this.”

“I think Lieutenant Miller said she went to university there,” said Eileen. “What about you, Jascha? Did any of your students go on exchange to Vinland?”

The former professor thought for a moment. “A fair few. A lot of them talked about the portions. I’m sure there was some exaggeration, but they were awed by just how much the people over there could eat. The steady rise in the quantity of their exports shows that the United States of Vinland has a great surplus of resources, including their agricultural…”

Gertrude, while interested in the impromptu lecture, found her attention drawn to Zaiga. The Darcsen had hardly touched his food, which was strange, as he loved meat just as much as anyone else in the platoon. But even the sausage and bacon had been left on their own to cool.

“Zaiga?” she asked, “is something wrong with your food?”

No response. She tried again. A bit louder. “Zaiga?”

* * *

“Zaiga, with me! Riley’s teams are gonna shell the market corner. When the mortars fly, we’ll run to the carts at our 10, then flank left. The rest of 1st Squad will lay down suppressing fire to cover our advance, you got it?”

“I gotcha, bro!” Zaiga yelled. A series of pings on the cobblestone floor ensured he kept his head down to avoid catching a bullet from rifle fire.

Thankfully, the bullets themselves were rubber. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t hurt like a bitch.

Not much time had passed since they had broken through the Siegval Line. With the Empire’s premiere defensive position in ruins, Federation forces had been advancing at an impressive rate, almost to the point where they had outrun their own supply lines.

The small town of Einhemt had been their regiment’s latest target. Relatively undefended, Easy and its sister platoons had captured it, and were now beginning the process of regrouping and consolidating their forces for a few days before resuming their march northward. In their short time of rest, they’d found out the town’s supply of bacon and bread had mysteriously disappeared…and reappeared right in the hands of Lieutenant Victor’s Fox Platoon.

When he’d seen their allies hogging one of his ‘Three B’s (bear, bacon and babes), Raz had _not_ been happy. Charging in with Kai, whose typical level-headedness had vanished at the sight of so many beautiful loaves of bread just out of her reach, the two Sergeants had started a brawl.

While having legitimately bought all the food from the locals, Lieutenant Victor had conceded that depriving the other platoons of the chance to eat something other than MREs had been an act of poor taste. Thus, it was decided that Easy Platoon would face off against Fox Platoon in a mock battle to decide whether the latter would share their earnings with the rest of the regiment. After ensuring the civilians had been moved to a safe distance, they’d exchanged their standard bullets, flamethrowers and explosives for rubber pellets, fire extinguishers and smoke rounds. Vehicles and lancers had been prohibited, as their weapons didn’t exactly have a ‘safe’ alternative.

The battle had commenced, and both sides, once comrades in arms ready to die for each other in the line of duty, opened fire. That had been about a half an hour ago, and Fox Platoon had been reduced to less than a dozen Rangers. Easy had taken ‘casualties’ as well, but now it was clear they had the upper hand.

It was time they laid claim to what was theirs.

“Mortars ready, Claude,” Zaiga heard over the radio.

“Copy that, Riley,” their commanding officer said. “Raz, you set?”

“Hell yeah, let’s do this!” the older Darcsen grinned, teeth bared in anticipation.

“Mortars, fire when ready.”

“Hang it…fire!”

A round of thumps sounded before four plumes of smoke dotted the area in front of Zaiga. Those caught in the ‘blast’ coughed and wheezed, desperately trying to find some fresh air. Easy’s grenadiers had hit their mark perfectly. A pair of thuds signalled Fox’s own surviving grenadiers, who had finally zeroed in on their counterparts. Riley had barely enough time to throw out a warning before her fireteams were similarly blanketed by white exhaust.

But Zaiga couldn’t worry about their now incapacitated fire support. Not when Raz had trusted him to stay focused and at his side. With one last nod to his squad leader, Zaiga prepared to leap out of cover, as Raz gave the order.

“1st Squad, suppressing fire!”

And with that, the two Darcsens ran. In the scant amount of time it took to reach their destination, Zaiga heard and damn near felt the ‘fake’ bullets whiz by his sprinting form. Breathing heavily through his mouth, he made the decision to leap the final few metres to the cart. He grunted as he hit the pavement, arms absorbing much of the impact. Any thoughts of how cool his little manoeuvre may have looked evaporated, as he quickly realised he still wasn’t fully behind cover, and started wriggling forwards. He soon joined Raz, who’d ducked down after letting off a quick burst to cover Zaiga’s less than dignified crossing of the finish line.

“You good?” asked his Sergeant, as he loaded another magazine.

“Yeah!” Zaiga said, trying to hide the burning mortification in his cheeks.

“Alright, time to end this.”

They’d circled about halfway around the ‘surviving’ members of Fox. One more dash, and they’d be free to fire on their rival platoon’s exposed side.

“Now!”

Zaiga could hear shouting while their boots hit cobblestone. It was Lieutenant Victor, yelling orders and encouragement to the last of her troops. The woman was nothing, if not tenacious.

He and Raz reached their intended positions and braced their guns on a stack of boxes. Preoccupied with the rest of Easy, Lieutenant Victor and her men had yet to notice the firing squad on their right. Even while aiming down his iron sights, Zaiga could feel Raz readying up a one liner. Considering they weren’t on an actual battlefield, he seemed to be willing to indulge himself on having the final word.

“You!” his Sergeant roared.

The redhead officer turned and saw her impending doom. She tried to raise her rifle in their direction, but it was too late.

“Gimme my bacon!”

And with that, they fired.

* * *

Zaiga dropped his fork.

Gertrude, who had leaned towards him in concern, slid back. Their table had gone quiet, staring with curiosity and a level of worry. The Darcsen blinked and looked around. He cleared his throat.

“Whooo! Man, I just got real dizzy. You’d think after so long on the _Centurion_ , I’d have found my sea legs faster.”

He received a murmur of sympathy from the others, but everyone could tell something wasn’t right. Gertrude thought she saw a flash of…something pass on the Darcsen’s face. Panic? Fear? Regret? Whatever it was, when she blinked, it was gone.

Zaiga picked his fork back up and stabbed the sausage on his plate. Taking a large bite, he nodded in approval.

“Not bad! Oh man, this is great. Do you think I could live off this stuff on an Army salary?”

“Zaiga, please,” said Gertrude, almost out of reflex. “Swallow first.”

Her protest was casually waved off. “Hey, when you’re in the military, you gotta eat fast. I’m just multitasking.”

“A fair point, but we are not in a combat zone. Decorum is an important part of one’s–“

To her increasing annoyance, Zaiga had now shoved a whole egg in his mouth and was still talking. “Blah, blah, blah. Can’t hear you over the sound of my stomach cheering.”

“Why, you uncouth urchin!”

* * *

“Are we sure they’re not…you know?” said Hanna, as the Darcsen and the noble became increasingly engrossed in their verbal sparring. She tried to articulate her meaning with a complex gesture, before settling with just bumping her fists together.

“You’re one to talk,” said Eileen. “I’m surprised Jascha hasn’t notice how much effort you put into cooking for him.”

The man in question inhaled some of his orange juice, and the lancer glared at the younger Blackwell.

“Oh yeah?” she said, as she thumped the choking mathematician’s back. “I’ve heard the scuttlebutt on Curtis. Not even 24 hours, and he’s got himself quite the fan club. Can’t say I’m surprised, since he’s so tall, brooding, handsome, and all that.”

Eileen’s face lost some of its colour, and she rounded on her brother. “Is it true, Curtis?”

The scout quickly looked left and right, in truth oblivious to the attention he’d been apparently receiving, but not quite sure how to express his innocence. “Uhhh…”

A hand grabbed him by the collar before he was yanked down to eye level with his sister. “If anyone approaches you with as much as a smile, a wink, or a ‘come-hither’, you bring them straight to me. You got that, young man?”

Rapid nods followed her demand.

* * *

As their table descended into chaos, Gertrude frowned internally. Partly because of Zaiga’s lacking table manners, but also partly because it was now clear her friend wasn’t being completely honest with her.

Especially with why, by the end of breakfast, he still hadn’t touched his bacon.


	4. Theirs But to do and Die

The second time she saw him at the railing, she was slightly more concerned.

Her friend had his back to the water this time and was absentmindedly looking at those passing by on the main deck.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “People watching,”

“People…watching?” she echoed.

“Yeah. I learnt in Hafen that if you stay in one spot long enough, the guys around you either clear out, or start seeing you as part of the background. Amazing what you can learn about from the ones that let their guard down.”

“Assuming you _can_ be quiet,” Gertrude snarked. She struggled to remember a time where the Darcsen had used his indoor voice without her prodding.

“Exactly,” grinned Zaiga. “You’re just so used to me kicking ass and taking names that you never noticed me sneaky side.”

“I refuse to play into your mind games,” she said, shaking her head. She tried to ignore the flare of doubt that surfaced. Surely, he was joking.

He folded his arms and looked straight ahead. She imagined he was trying to give off a mysterious aura. “The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma.”

“At least your vocabulary seems to have expanded,” Gertrude huffed. She moved next to him and similarly leaned on the railing. “Is there anything interesting you have found from your…observations?”

“Well…” Zaiga leaned sideways, and she couldn’t help but tilt her head to bring an ear closer to hear what he was about to say.

“See those two over at our 9?”

She glanced at the people in question. A pair of Sailors were walking away from the two of them. “Yes.”

“A few minutes ago, they were talking about one of their buddies, who’s in prison back in Edinburgh waiting for a court martial.”

“What for?”

“Turns out he was assigned to one of the ships in a task unit escorting the Prime Minister on a top-secret meetup with the Federation’s other leaders. During the expedition, they wanted to impress the PM with a torpedo drill using dummy rounds. Only problem was, when he set his assigned torpedo tubes to fire, he launched a live one…right at the flagship.”

“What?” Gertrude brought a hand to her mouth. “Did it hit?”

“Nah, they managed to signal the ship to evade in the nick of time. But when they hit port, the entire crew of the ship that launched the torpedo was arrested. All fingers were pointed at the dumbass who fired the live round, and now he’s rotting in a cell until the military decides whether to hang him or not.”

“Unbelievable…” she said.

“You’re right.”

“What?”

“I just made it all up,” said Zaiga, his grin widening to show his teeth.

The hand at her mouth balled into a fist and she threw a punch at the Darcsen, who began openly laughing.

* * *

“Do you have any genuine stories you would like to share?”

Zaiga shook his head. “I hadn’t been here long enough to blend in. These things can take hours before you hear anything juicy.”

He then scratched at his temple, frowning a little. “Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ll be fading into the deck any time soon. Like it or not, we’re pretty popular right now.”

“Our platoon does seem to have come under the limelight,” Gertrude agreed. “Although, considering our exploits during the war, I am not surprised.”

“Yeah,” he said. “This whole ‘fame’ thing is pretty new to me. I mean, it was a given that we were the best platoon in our regiment. But being recognised by the whole damn battlegroup’s kinda weird.”

In their communications with Federation headquarters, the _Centurion’s_ crew had been informed that Operation Cygnus was to be censored to prevent the public from seeing just how violently the war could have ended or, more likely, continued. But it was quite difficult to hide such a military endeavour from the ships that were meant to escort them back to Gaulis. To say they were a subject of interest on their voyage would be a gross understatement.

“Indeed. One must adapt to the attention quickly, lest they lose their head and do something that may damage their reputation.”

“What, you a celebrity back home, too?”

“You forget that I am nobility,” she said. “My family may not be a very prominent house, but we are still part of the monarchy. Our actions are always under scrutiny, from both our allies and our rivals.”

Zaiga grimaced. “Sounds suffocating.”

“It is the price we pay for our status,” she said. “It may not be comparable to poverty, or segregation. But sometimes, being on the high-end of society has its detractors.”

“Well, if the whole ‘your Majesty’ thing doesn’t work out, I’m pretty sure the guys from Hafen would be happy to let you bunk with us ruffians.”

Gertrude rolled her eyes. While Zaiga wasn’t technically wrong about her being a candidate for coronation, the Albrights’ claim to the throne was superseded by a number of other nobles well into the hundreds. Suffice to say, her chance of being the next figurehead of Edinburgh was as close to zero as one could get. Of course, when she had explained this to Zaiga, he’d merely been delighted at gaining more verbal ammo to tease her with.

“In truth, I would not mind visiting Gallia,” she said. “Our time on mainland Europa has shown me quite the array of cultures, even if most of them were framed with rubble. Now that there is peace, I would not be averse to seeing more.”

“Guess I can’t fault that.”

For a while, they remained silent, having said everything they wanted to say for the time being. Gertrude listened to the sounds of the ocean lapping against and being parted by the Unrelenting’s sides and bow. She felt a light breeze against her face, and the tender warmth of the sun on the back of her neck. She thought of the war before the ceasefire. It felt like so much, and yet so little, time had passed since she’d had to contend with the muddy trenches and biting winter. It was almost like she was on an entirely different planet. Because no matter if, or when, the Federation and Empire decided to reignite the flames of death and destruction, right now everything felt so peaceful.

“Hey, sis?”

“Yes?”

“Do you…do you ever think about the Forest?”

Slowly, she turned her head to look at Zaiga hunched over the railing. “You are referring to the Forest of Ice?”

In the final days of the war, the Centurion had run into a tesla-net trap just a few hundred kilometres from its target of Schwarzgrad. While they had ultimately escaped and charged onto the capital, they had not done so without losses.

“Yeah…that one.”

“I do,” she said. “Not very often. It is a…difficult mission to remember.”

“What about the people we lost?”

“Do you mean Sergeant Raz?”

While not officially his adjutant, assistant, or even his second in command, Zaiga had been close to Sergeant Raz, a fellow Darcsen, and leader of Easy Platoon’s 1st Infantry Squad. She didn’t know him very well. But from what Gertrude could gather, Raz had been like an older brother to her friend. From the streets of Hafen to the Ranger Corps, he had stuck with the Sergeant, and proclaimed himself as his right-hand man. Gertrude would understand if he–

“No.”

She blinked in surprise.

“I mean, not just him.”

A piece of the puzzle, a puzzle she’d been trying to solve since their second day on the _Unrelenting_ , fell into place.

When they’d been surrounded by the tesla-nets, Captain Wallace had ordered Sergeant Raz to destroy the generator that was powering the trap, while the rest of the platoon launched a diversionary attack. It was a suicide mission, and everyone involved was informed of it as such. The Sergeant had gone without hesitation. Before he’d sortied, he’d requested one volunteer from the platoon’s shock troopers to assist him. Every single one of them, including Zaiga, had stepped forward. In the end, Sergeant Raz had chosen Private Vancey Fioré.

Easy Platoon had some…colourful characters. One of them had been Vancey, a lady who consumed alcohol like any other human consumed water. Perpetually drunk and undisciplined, if it were not for her incredible proficiency with firearms (even when wasted), and the Federation’s drastic manpower shortages, Gertrude would not have been surprised if she’d been discharged and thrown into the rags of unemployment.

Yet, when she’d asked the then Lieutenant Wallace about the shock trooper, he’d revealed Vancey had been part of a special operations unit that had been wiped out in a horrific massacre two years prior. As the sole survivor, she had turned to drinking to stave off the nightmares and flashbacks that encroached on her conscience.

The one respite, aside from whiskey, that Vancey indulged in was being a sort of unofficial trainer for Easy Platoon. When she’d seen Gertrude belittling Zaiga’s heritage and abilities in their first meeting, the former elite had approached the Darcsen and offered to teach him to be a better soldier. After that, Zaiga appeared to have found a secondary mentor – the tipsy aunt in conjunction with the older brother role that Raz fulfilled. After she had reconciled her differences and shortcomings with Zaiga, Gertrude had watched her newfound friend learning to grow as his own person, while also having a cornerstone in both his ‘bro’ and Vancey to fight alongside and fall back to if he ever truly felt overwhelmed.

But at the Forest of Ice, in their suicide mission to save the _Centurion_ , both Raz and Vancey had perished. The former had at the very least made a final radio transmission, at the end of which he had been gunned down by Imperial reinforcements. They had not received anything from the latter, forcing command to mark her as MIA, Presumed KIA.

Zaiga hadn’t been the same after that. Of course, when they’d escaped the nets and crashed into Schwarzgrad, he’d thumped his chest and fought with a tenacity fuelled by vengeance. But afterwards, when the ceasefire was declared, when everything went quiet, he would go quiet too.

She placed a hand on Zaiga’s arm.

“Zaiga?”

“Yeah?”

“Were you really just people watching?”

She saw his shoulders slump, and a heavy weight set in her stomach.

“…No.”

“Then what were you doing up here?”

He swallowed. “…I don’t know.”

She was surprised to hear his voice shake. She had no response. Not when, for perhaps the first time, he was letting his inward thoughts show. She felt like she should have been angry at him for lying. But she just felt sad. Not in the sense that he had betrayed her trust. Rather, because he hadn’t felt comfortable enough to trust her in the first place.

“You ever get the feeling that you…don’t deserve to live?”

Whatever response she was trying to formulate to his admission died at the question. Was there a sense of guilt in him? If there was, she couldn’t understand it.

“Zaiga?”

He still wasn’t looking at her. “Like maybe, some time in your life, you’ve fucked up so bad that you honestly feel you’ll never be able to make up for it?”

Gertrude could, to an extent, empathise with the sentiment. The hegemonic nature of her upbringing had little flexibility. Under the gaze of so many, every ‘mistake’ she’d made in public, and quite a few in private had been addressed at some point. And yet, she could not think of an instance where she’d been so far out of line as to warrant an eternity of retribution. Prejudiced and antiquated her family may be, but they were not complete monsters. Forgiveness and improvement were considered equally important as justice and discipline, within the family at least.

“I…cannot say I have.”

“That must be nice…not having someone calling for your head every day.”

That caused a spark of alarm.

“Zaiga, what’s going on? Who are you talking about?”

He shook his head. “No one.”

When he finally looked at her, there was no joke, no deception. Not this time. “No one alive.”

* * *

He’d left after that, mumbling a quick apology for bringing down the mood and saying he needed to do something.

She’d remained at the railing, a part of her yearning to go after him, but frustratingly anchored by the need to piece together what little information he’d given her.

Zaiga was hurting, that much was beyond doubt. He was grieving the loss of Sergeant Raz and Private Fioré, but that grief was only a fraction of his current turmoil. There was something more. Something involving guilt and voices in his head. But why did he feel responsible for them? What was pushing him past mourning their losses and convicting himself of them instead? Everything was still too murky.

But if she couldn’t figure out what he was thinking, she didn’t know how she could help him. And judging by his evasive responses the past few days, today had been a slip up. If she couldn’t trust him to let her in, she’d have to find someone who could give some insight into his suffering, self-imposed or otherwise. But who?

Sergio and Karen were obvious choices. As the _Centurion’s_ Chief Medical Officer and Easy’s Platoon Medic respectively, it was a safe bet that they’d have some idea of what might be ailing Zaiga’s mind.

But this time, she had a feeling that there was someone who might be able to give her a more, for lack of a better term, ‘gritty’ perspective. As a Ship Surgeon, Sergio had comparatively little combat experience to that of an enlisted Corpsman who would have been deployed with the Marines. And with respect to Karen’s herculean efforts to keep their platoon on their feet during and after battle, she appeared to have taken the strenuous task of balancing medical duties and dodging gunfire in remarkable stride. She would nevertheless ask them about Zaiga. But there was another person. Someone who’d suffered loss and felt the remorse that her friend had hinted at. Someone who, if willing, might be able to give her a better idea of just what was happening with the Darcsen.

It was time to pay one of Easy Platoon’s engineers visit.


	5. Survivors…One Too Many

Gertrude couldn’t blame Rebecca when she didn’t answer immediately. She’d tried to be tactful in asking, but in the end, there was always the possibility that she was just bringing back unwanted memories.

After about a minute, when she was about to apologise for the trouble and leave, Rebecca responded.

“Yeah…I think I know what you’re talking about.”

Despite not being known for having a sunny disposition, Rebecca’s hunched form and faraway stare was still a notable break from her usual indifference. Gertrude felt her conscience protest at the sight.

“If you would rather not–“

“It’s alright,” the engineer said. “You’ll have a better idea if you knew the details.”

Respecting and thankful for her decision, Gertrude remained silent and waited for her to continue. Rebecca sighed through her nose and started tapping the floor with her left foot.

“By the time you guys were deployed to Milt, I’d already been in 2nd Regiment for a while. I used to be in Baker Platoon…”

* * *

When Samuel’s breaths trailed off and his pulse disappeared, she had no tears left to shed. She’d already spent them on the ones that had died before him. Just like her Ragnaid.

She’d grown numb to the artillery that had been pounding the area. In between wave after wave of Imperial assaults, they’d been incessant. Constantly forcing them back into the bunkers and foxholes. Constantly trying to land that lucky hit that would turn a few them to paste or make a ceiling cave in. Constantly giving them the brutal mercy to regroup, count their dead and wounded, and hope they wouldn’t be the next to go.

She was a Combat Engineer. As per the Ranger Corps, that meant she also pulled double duty as a medic. Each platoon nevertheless had a single dedicated Platoon Medic. Theirs had lost his feet to a grenade in the first wave. He’d died from shock before they could even get to him. She and a few other unlucky souls had been forced to take the medical kit from his mutilated body and make do with it and their own supplies to treat their wounded.

That had been over eight hours ago. Now, they were down to less than a dozen walking Rangers and their final magazines and clips. Some of them were carrying weapons looted from the enemy. Everyone was at their limit.

“Over here! I need some help!”

She dared not glance back at Samuel’s cooling body when she was called over to the next casualty. It was Alexander and Grace from the 1st Marksmen Fireteam. The former was trying to absorb the blood from the latter’s stub of a right arm with one of his sleeves.

“You’re doing good Alex, just keep your hands there,” Rebecca said. “Grace, I’m gonna tie a tourniquet around your arm. It’s gonna hurt even worse at first. But after that, the whole thing will go numb, and that’ll mean it’s no longer bleeding, alright?”

“Yeah, I got it,” said Alexander.

Grace nodded weakly. “Morphine?”

Rebecca shook her head. “I’m sorry, we’re out.”

She pulled out a strip of cloth. An hour ago, it had been part of Miranda’s fatigues. Now, it was one of the only things left from the scout’s encounter with a howitzer shell. She grimaced, wrapping the cotton around the maimed limb. Grace’s screams stabbed at her ears, and she tried to make the first knot. The blood that continued to spurt from the stump made her fingers slip, and she cursed as the cloth went undone. By her second attempt, Grace had mercifully fallen unconscious from the pain. After the first knot eventually set, she picked up a small, thin piece of concrete she’d seen on the ground and tied the second knot around it. She rotated it five times, making the makeshift tourniquet squeeze the arm tighter.

When she finished, Alexander looked pleadingly at her, begging for a verdict. Her shoulders felt too heavy to shrug.

“Medic! We need a medic here!”

She stood up. There was always another.

“Make sure it doesn’t unravel,” she instructed to Alexander, who nodded and held onto the knot.

She stumbled as the shockwave of a shell landing uncomfortably close to the bunker rattled the world around her. She gritted her teeth and kept going. She arrived next to Lieutenant Brenton, the platoon’s commanding officer. He was bleeding from a head wound and having trouble keeping one of his eyes open.

“Sir,” she began, searching for any bandages that were maybe hiding in the depths of her pouches.

“Not me,” he said. She glanced at his hands. They were coated in red, trying to stem the river flowing from another man’s chest. It was Jerome from 2nd Squad. Blood pooled on the floor beneath him. He’d either been shot from both the front and back, or a round had passed through him, probably tumbling around in his body, before exiting out the other side.

She searched herself again. Her and the Lieutenant’s own uniforms were in tatters, scorched by fire and already torn all over to make some makeshift bandages earlier. She needed gauze, tape, paper, anything that might help.

There was nothing left.

She shook her head.

Lieutenant Brenton cursed, but kept pressure on the front wound. He probably knew it would be useless if they didn’t have a way to seal both ends, never mind deal with any internal damage.

“Hey, Bec…”

Jerome’s raspy voice made her look down. Any response she had for his greeting disappeared at the sight of his ashen face and glazed eyes.

“Don’t speak, Private,” Lieutenant Brenton said. “Save your strength.”

“S’all right, sir…I know it’s bad…”

He knew he was going to die. Fucking hell, she knew she was probably going to die.

“Jerome, I…” There was so much she wanted to say, but only so little that she could bring herself to.

“Don’t worry.” He was slurring his words more by the second. “Woulda used it all anyways.”

“But if I’d spared some for the later attacks–”

“Hey, no point thinking ‘bout that,” he said. A hand went up to pat her arm, but the effort was too much. She took it before it could fall and held onto it like it was a lifeline for the wounded man’s slowing breaths.

“Just tell my folks…I went out…with a bang…Don’t want ‘em thinking I…died like a pansy…”

“We won’t have to,” said Lieutenant Brenton. “Just hang in there, Jerome.”

Rebecca heard a slight rumble sound off in the back of Jerome’s throat. If not for his marred state, it might have been a chuckle.

“The hell you think…I’ve been doing all day, sir?”

That got a small, desperate laugh out of her and the Lieutenant. Jerome smiled…and then he was gone.

* * *

“I was never good with managing my stuff. Ammo, water, medicine…I’d burn through it all so quickly. If one of my people were even scratched, I’d start pouring Ragnaid on them, like I was some Messiah with healing tears. And when the real injuries started coming in…I had nothing…”

* * *

“5th Armoured’s making another counterattack. They’ll try to reach us within the hour,” said Lieutenant Brenton. There wasn’t much of an audience to receive the news.

“Sure, just so long as they’re happy backing up a grave,” said Howard.

As much as she wanted this nightmare of a day to be over, Rebecca was inclined to agree with Howard’s pessimism. Federation units had been trying to reach them since dawn, but the Imperials had driven back every single attempt to reinforce their position. She considered it a miracle that they hadn’t been encircled and annihilated in the first few hours. At the very least, their other platoons on the flanks had initially held steady. But after half a day of being pummelled without proper recourse, their regiment had been hammered and were running on little more than adrenaline.

By noon, they’d long since declared themselves combat ineffective. Now, in the early afternoon, there was no one else left. Either the tanks and mechanised infantry from the Gaulisian 5th Armoured Regiment would finally make a successful push and break through the Imperials, or they’d be beaten back like the others had and Baker would be left to their last stand. A part of her wished for the latter.

“They’ll be here, Corporal,” said Sergeant Yarros, leader of Baker’s 1st Infantry Squad, and their lone surviving NCO. “We’ll just have to stand our ground a little longer.”

“No, you know what? I’m done.” Howard marched up to Lieutenant Brenton, accusing finger halting centimetres from the officer’s face. “It’s over, we lost. We surrender now, we live.”

“You don’t know that Howard,“ replied the Lieutenant. Be it from fanaticism or a lack of discipline, the initial few weeks of the Empire’s advance had been plagued with reports of villages razed to the ground and POWs being executed after their surrender. International law and the Geneva Convention were tenuously enforced at the best of times. One of the few things that had kept them fighting was the threat of becoming the next war crime for politicians and historians to argue over while their corpses rotted in the mud.

“So, what if I don’t, huh? What if I’m wrong? Then they’ll shoot us, but at least then it’ll be quick!”

“Howard, you need to simmer down.”

“ _Fuck you_!”

During the shouting, Rebecca saw Howard glancing at the strap around his shoulder that held his submachine gun. Lieutenant Brenton had definitely seen the Corporal eyeing his weapon. The officer’s arms were crossed, but she knew as well as anybody in Baker how quickly he could draw his pistol. A metre and a half away, Sergeant Yarros’ hands were slowly moving to the rifle he’d ‘appropriated’ from an Imperial scout after running out of bullets for his own weapon. Once the guns went up, there was no turning back. Someone was going to get shot. The tension was palpable, as the platoon’s remnants looked on in morbid fascination to see who would cross the line first. She could hear her own short breaths in the silence that followed, eyes flickering between the three…

Wait. Silence?

“The artillery,” she whispered. Everyone froze, ears straining to hear the barrage that was no longer present.

“Shit, another attack!”

Each fight they’d been dragged into had been preceded by the Imperials halting their fire, so as not to shell their advancing troops. It appeared their ‘break’ was over.

Scrambling to grab her own rifle, Rebecca saw Lieutenant Brenton put a hand on Howard’s shoulder. They exchanged a few words, and she saw the latter’s shoulders slump, before he unslung his weapon and ran with the others for the door.

* * *

“Our bunkers were on hills and there were a lot of valleys that let us funnel the Imperials into kill-zones. For the first few hours, it worked. But after taking so many casualties, there just weren’t enough of us left to keep all the avenues locked down or even look after the wounded.”

* * *

“Left side, left side!” Rebecca called out to Victor, who was manning their one remaining machine gun. Her squadmate grunted in acknowledgement and swung the smoking barrel to a group of Imperials trying to cut the barbed wire on their flank. The rhythmic thumps of the gun cut out all other sounds, as the targeted soldiers scrambled to get out of their line of fire. One keeled over when he was hit in the abdomen, and another tripped after his knee burst open in a spray of blood and bone.

Her and Victor’s attentions were drawn by the hisses and puffs of bullets whizzing by their forms or impacting on the dirt and sandbags around them. At least eight Imperials had come through another chokepoint and were now desperately trying to suppress them for their comrades to move up. Victor shifted the machine gun and let off a moderate burst, his head down so low that he was looking under the weapon and through its bipod to guide his aim instead of using its sights. Rebecca fired a couple of shots with her rifle, aiming at a shock trooper who’d accidently left part of his torso poking out of cover. One of her rounds hit his shoulder, and he jerked out of sight.

Of the 53 original members of their platoon, there were now 10 Rangers left. Lieutenant Brenton had split them up into 2 fireteams, with him leading one and Sergeant Yarros taking the other.

About five metres to their rear Rebecca was aware of Shelly loading another clip. The sniper was calm and collected, despite being tasked with holding down and taking fire from multiple points of entry. To Rebecca’s right, behind the wreck of a truck were Harris and Sergeant Yarros, who were prudently leveraging the vehicle’s wheels to better conceal their feet from the enemy. Lieutenant Brenton, Alexander, Mica, Howard, and May were on the other side of the bunker.

Edinburgh’s Rangers were the Federation’s premiere light infantry. But light infantry could only do so much for so long, especially when there were–

“Heavy tanks at the southeast!”

Southeast was on Rebecca’s left, and Lieutenant Brenton’s fireteam’s right. The Imperials were going to force a wedge between their two groups and annihilate them with superior firepower. A wave of terror and resignation swept through her. Baker Platoon’s lancers had long since either been shot or forced to shuck their M2EQs after expending all their rockets. They still had some grenades and satchel charges. But with the volume of fire that was rapidly filling the area, no one was going to reach the tanks before being cut down.

“What the hell are we supposed to do against those things?” said Harris.

“Just keep shooting, Private!” roared Sergeant Yarros.

Rebecca heard a yelp and turned around to see Shelly fall from a crouching position to being flat on her back, a hand at her neck.

“Medic, up!”

Without a second thought, she yelled “Check!”, leapt to her feet and ran to the sniper, form hunched over to minimise her silhouette for any shooters. Her relief after reaching Shelly’s position unscathed was quickly overridden by concern.

“Let me see that,” she said. Shelly complied, prying her hand away from an angry, red welt on the right side of her neck. A bullet had grazed the skin, thankfully missing the trachea. She said as much to Shelly, who just nodded and moved to pick up her sniper rifle again.

Rebecca was about to tell her to get back down when a ‘boom’ rocked her senses, followed by a light rain of earth and debris. It occurred to her, in her haste to check on Shelly, she’d forgotten about the tanks that had been announced not half a minute ago. She peeked around the tree and slab of concrete the sniper had been using for cover and searched for the rest of her fireteam.

Sergeant Yarros’ and Harris’ truck had been hit. The front engine was a mangled mess of scrap metal and leaking fuel. It looked like a monster had bitten down on the vehicle’s front and given it a couple of chews before deciding it wasn’t tasty enough and abandoned it as leftovers. Harris was face down a short distance from the truck. It looked like he’d tried to make a break for it, but hadn’t been quick enough to escape the blast. Whether he was dead or unconscious, she couldn’t tell. Sergeant Yarros was nowhere to be seen.

She looked for Victor and saw him in his foxhole with the machine gun. He was still firing, trying to stave off the Imperials that were now pressing forward, emboldened by their tank support. There was another ‘boom’, and a second tank round flew over him. He didn’t even blink.

Rebecca wondered why Shelly and herself weren’t being targeted. Then she remembered the concrete, which was shielding their prone bodies from view.

For a second, she remained still, frozen by the thought that she could hide or play dead and just wait out the assault. The notion was quickly shattered when Shelly crawled her way around the tree to get an angle and fired her sniper rifle. Rebecca couldn’t fault her for her choice.

So, she hauled herself up into a crouch, bracing her weapon against the concrete. She could see the tanks, five of them. Their bulky, blocky hulls sported a pair of machine guns and a sponson mounted cannon to supplement their main gun. Jutting out from their magazines were loading cranes to feed their gunners with ammunition. Their treads were wide and moved slowly to maintain traction with the sloped ground.

There was no point shooting them. They would kill her, but she could still kill some of their friends first. Rebecca sighted a scout making a dash across open ground. Leading her aim to compensate for the bullet’s travel time, she squeezed the trigger.

He twisted as the round hit him in the right thigh and tried to keep hobbling to his destination.

_Again._

Her next bullet struck his hand, and she saw a small puff of red. He flinched but was still moving.

_Again._

The third shot hit him square in the chest. He fell to his knees.

_Again!_

This time, she got him in the head. The scout’s body was wrenched backwards by the force of the bullet. He didn’t move after that. Her magazine was empty.

By now, the tanks had noticed her and Shelly. She watched as three out of the five vehicles turned to stare down their little holdout. There was nothing left to do but look back at the barrels. Dimly, she was aware of a pair of thumps, followed by another spray of earth on her side. Victor’s machine gun went silent. She heard Shelly fire the final round in her clip. Neither of them bothered to reload.

As a line of bullets raked across the ground and concrete in front of her, Rebecca felt…not happy…but comfortable. She no longer felt the fatigue and pain she’d been burdened with throughout the day. No more was she conscious of the dirt and blood coating her skin, hair, and uniform. She couldn’t feel the dryness of her throat. Her eyes didn’t ache. Her gear wasn’t heavy. Her breaths came long and deep, savouring the air and revelling in the smell of smoke, corpses, and gunpowder. She was going to die now. But she didn’t care.

_It’s over…It’s finally over._

* * *

“At that moment, it felt like someone – maybe God, maybe one of my squadmates, I don’t know – it felt like someone was going to render judgement on me. So many of our guys had died already. So many of them could’ve been saved by me. But I’d failed them. All of them. It was my fault. All because I couldn’t ration my fucking supplies. And now, I was going to pay the price.”

* * *

A distinctive whistling settled in Rebecca’s ears. Initially low and quiet, it rapidly increased in pitch and volume. At the same time, a streak of yellow and white cut a horizontal line across her vision, before slamming into the side armour of one of the tanks. Fire and smoke billowed out of the neat hole it had punched in the plating. Not half a second later, the whistling returned, this time from multiple sources. Like sharp beams of light, round after round screamed through the air to bombard the five behemoths that had threatened to roll over Baker Platoon’s position. Some missed or ricocheted off the protective layers, but there was still the occasional satisfying ‘crunch’ of a penetrating hit. Tracks were severed, engines stalled, and internal ammunition stores blown in a mesmerising display of fireworks.

In a few heartbeats, three of the five heavy tanks were either immobilised or destroyed. The remaining two began traversing their turrets and turning their hulls to face the new threat. Rebecca imagined the Imperial gunners and commanders desperately scrambling to get a bead on their assailants. Four thunderous ‘claps’ reverberated from their twin turrets, but she could see they’d fired too hastily. In their panic, the Imperials hadn’t taken the time to aim. Just point, shoot, and pray.

She didn’t know why, but she was afraid to search for her saviours. However, when Shelly let out a quiet, “My God, they’re here,” she forced herself to look.

The sight of a convoy of over fifty vehicles greeted her eyes. From tanks to trucks and armoured personnel carriers, the might of Gaulis’ 5th Armoured Regiment rumbled on tracks and wheels in a crawling advance of retribution. Even from hundreds of metres away, she noticed many of them were damaged. Scorch marks, smoking exhausts, and shorn plating were visible on the majority of the convoy, and most intensely on the vehicles at the front. Any animosity at their hours overdue arrival disappeared when she saw the mangled, yet ultimately undeterred reinforcements. However long the Rangers had been forced to hold their positions, it was clear that the Gaulisians had been through their own hell trying to break through the Imperial encirclement attempts. But they were here now.

The 5th Armoured’s tanks came to a stop. The convoy’s other vehicles must have been warned, because they’d pre-emptively veered away to avoid collisions. Rebecca knew they’d halted to let their guns and sights stabilise for more accurate shots. Moments later, a cacophony of ‘cracks’ resounded, and once more, she saw the streaks of anti-armour rounds flying across the battered landscape to finish off the remaining pair of Imperial tanks. She twisted her neck to see shells impacting steel, and the last of the metal monsters fell.

As the relief force approached their mauled platoon, Rebecca stood up. The Imperial infantry had fled, sufficiently cowed by the hammer of the Federation that had come sailing down on their armoured support’s heads. But they’d be back. Soon, the artillery would start pounding the bunker again, and more troops and tanks would be sent to capture their hill. It was time to withdraw. It _had_ been time to withdraw since early morning. But only now could they effectively retreat. Only now were they out of the grim reaper’s stranglehold.

She dropped her rifle. Without much thought, she licked her dry, cracked lips, and was surprised to taste salt.

It turned out she had some tears left to shed after all.

* * *

“For a long time, I believed I’d cheated death…that I didn’t deserve to live, when so many of my friends, my brothers and sisters, had died because I couldn’t save them. For weeks, I’d trudge through the day, only to fall asleep and see their bodies with holes in their necks and chests, limbs torn off to leave twitching stumps, skin turned grey and swollen with blood and other fluids. And in my hands, there’d always be a canister of Ragnaid…empty…useless…like me.”

Gertrude wasn’t sure what to say. She, along with the rest of Easy had seen extensive combat in the Second Europan War. They’d each individually seen more blood spilled than any one person should have to in a lifetime. But what Rebecca had described didn’t sound like combat, rather a nightmare. The closest experience she could pin to the engineer’s plight would have been the days they’d spent retreating from the devastating Imperial counterattack on Lindbergh. But even with no supply lines, and the threat of hypothermia or frostbite from the infuriatingly cold weather, they’d at least had a tangible goal of regrouping with the Navy to keep them motivated and mobile.

In the end, she settled with, “how many made it out that day?”

“Just five, including me. Shelly and I were the only ones who stayed in the army. I was folded into Easy Platoon when you guys deployed, while she was transferred to 1st Regiment. Everyone else was sent home.” She didn’t need to mention that most of them had returned to their countries in caskets.

“And you believe Zaiga is experiencing a similar guilt for Sergeant Raz and Vancey?”

Rebecca nodded. “Way I see it, he was pretty tight with those two. Not to say you were a fourth wheel. But before the Forest of Ice, he had three people he considered to be his closest friends. After, he only had one. You.”

It felt nice for someone to acknowledge her bond with the Darcsen, but Gertrude still had questions. “And I would understand if he was merely grieving, but I cannot see why he feels he is responsible for their deaths.”

“We hide our reasons,” said Rebecca. “I still remember when most of Easy thought I was some inconsiderate bitch who hoarded my own supplies, and never gave out Ragnaid or ammo when they needed it.”

“But you were just frightened you would run out like you did with Baker Platoon.”

“Yeah, but I can’t say they were wrong. My unit had a _lot_ of close calls with me as their engineer.”

Gertrude couldn’t deny that. Even in 1st Squad, they’d heard the many grumblings and complaints from their brethren in 2nd, especially the morbid joke that if the Imperials didn’t kill them, Rebecca’s stinginess would.

“Then how would I get Zaiga to open up?”

Rebecca put a hand to her chin. “Well, I’d just keep talking to him.”

Gertrude tilted her head, more than a little incredulous. “Just…talk?”

“Yeah. It took some time to crack me, but eventually a couple guys from 2nd Squad confronted me. Threatened to beat me up or even frag me in the field if I wasn’t gonna heal or resupply them properly in a fight. That was a fucking wakeup call if I ever needed one. I just broke down, started blubbering my heart out. Told them pretty much what I told you. It wasn’t my proudest moment, but it was when I saw something had to change.”

“But I’ve tried to talk to him,” Gertrude said. “When he slips up or I feel something’s not right, I want to listen. But he just smiles and goes back to normal. Yesterday was the one time he admitted that anything was amiss, and even that was after he’d spun a story to try to make me think everything was alright!”

She’d raised her voice. From frustration or panic, she didn’t know. The cracks in the dam were showing. She knew her friend was hurting, and nothing she was doing seemed to be working. It took a moment for her to realise she’d just shouted at Rebecca.

“I am sorry,” she said, hanging her head. “That was uncalled for.”

There was a poignant pause, before Gertrude felt Rebecca rest her hands on one of her own.

“When I was sent back into the fight,” said the engineer, “I was tearing myself up over the guys in Baker. Some days, I still do. Still get the nightmares.”

“Then what changed?” She had to know, had to at least try to understand. Why was Zaiga hurting? Why wasn’t she hurting like he was? She’d gone through the same fights, the same battles as the Darcsen. They’d laughed together, fought together, and damn near died together. Why had they come out of this godforsaken war so differently?

“I don’t know how many of my guys I could’ve saved that day,” said Rebecca. “One? Two? Ten? I just don’t know. What I do know is how many I lost…And from that, I made myself a promise.”

The grip on her hand grew a little tighter. “Not. One. More _._ ”

Gertrude blinked rapidly, feeling tears coming to her eyes. Only three words, Rebecca’s statement may have contained. But they felt so powerful. Unrealistic as her intentions were, she’d succeeded. 2nd Squad hadn’t suffered a single fatality throughout their stay in Easy Platoon. And for a moment, she felt a mix of elation and shame. Admiration for the woman in front of her, and remorse that she couldn’t seem to replicate her affirmation for Zaiga and herself.

“But I feel so helpless,” she said. “As if there is some invisible wall that is preventing him from moving on.”

“Sometimes,” said Rebecca, “we’re just not ready to see what’s going on in our own heads.”

“Then when will he be ready?” she asked, fighting to keep the tremble out of her voice.

“Only Zaiga can tell you that.”

For a while, they said no more. Gertrude felt the warmth of Rebecca’s hands clasped around her own, and she was reminded of how the engineer had held one of her squadmates, Jerome, in a similar manner in his final moments.

Eventually, she felt comfortable speaking again. “Thank you.”

Rebecca smiled, and shrugged. It was such an alleviating contrast from the sombre mood of before that, for just a second, Gertrude felt everything was going to be okay. “Don’t give up on him yet, eh?”

She closed her eyes and nodded. But there was still uncertainty within her. “Do you honestly think he will be alright?”

“I can only hope.”

Gertrude looked up, heart and mind set. “Then I will make it so.”

* * *

This time, before Gertrude went to turn in for the night, she decided to visit Zaiga. She went to his assigned cabin and knocked.

The door was opened by Jimmy, who along with Aulard and Thomas-err ‘Odin’, occupied the two sets of bunk beds with the Darcsen.

“Hey, Gertrude. What’s up?”

“Good evening, Jimmy. I wanted to see how Zaiga is doing.”

“Ah, I’m afraid Zaiga’s not here right now,” Jimmy said.

Gertrude didn’t like the cold thrill of trepidation that ran down her back. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“A few minutes ago, at dinner. He seemed pretty down, so I tried to ask if anything was wrong. He didn’t really say much though.”

Jimmy turned to ask his bunkmates if they knew where Zaiga was, but Gertrude didn’t wait to find out. She about-faced and ran. As she sprinted away from Jimmy’s surprised voice, her conversations from the past three days started ringing in her ears. Conversations that became twisted into something she and Rebecca had danced around, but never truly acknowledged as a possibility.

_“We hide our reasons…”_

_“That must be nice…not having someone calling for your head every day.”_

_“Some might think you have a death wish.”_


	6. Not the Fall That Kills You

When she made it to the main deck, her eyes struggled to adjust to the dark. She could still see lights from the _Unrelenting’s_ superstructure, but the moon and stars were blotted out by a blanket of clouds. The sound of waves crashing against each other and the ship’s hull always seemed to be louder at night.

The pounding of her feet was surpassed in intensity only by her heart. She sprinted for the bow, the one place that she could count on him to go to. He had to be there. He had to be. He had to.

She saw a silhouette at the railing. It was too far to make out their face, but she knew it was him. He wasn’t leaning on it this time. His head was bowed, and his arms were at his sides. This was the third time.

This was the last time.

_Please don’t move._

A foot went up to brace itself on the bars. She kept running.

_Please don’t go up._

Hands rose to grip the top. She kept running.

_Please back down._

A second foot went up. She kept running.

_Please._

She called out his name.

_Tell me what’s wrong._

He stiffened.

_Tell me what I can do._

He twisted around and saw her.

_Tell me I can stop you._

He slipped…and the world stopped spinning.

Frozen in place, she stared. One foot was still on the railing, while the other was splayed out in an awkward angle, along with his arms. He was still looking at her. She thought she could see a pair of tiny flecks of white. Maybe they were his eyes, reflecting the glare of a lamp or bulb somewhere on the ship.

It was too late. She was always too late. Always one step behind him, trying to comprehend what he was going through, but never coming to the right conclusion fast enough. Because she wasn’t good enough.

Because he wouldn’t tell her.

A surge of something powerful flooded her veins. Not fear. Not despair. Not even compassion.

It was anger.

White hot, burning anger.

He was wrong.

Whatever he’d gone through, whatever he’d experienced, whatever had pushed him to make this decision…he was wrong.

Through battle after battle, they’d crashed through what felt like the entire Imperial army and come out with their lives. With the rest of 1st Squad, with the rest of Easy Platoon, they’d been prepared to meet their end to a stray bullet, a lucky grenade, an indiscriminate cannon. When one of them was hit, the other would drag them to safety. When one of them was shivering in the bleak winter, the other would hand them their coat, or fire them up to get the blood flowing again. When one of them felt the war bearing down on their shoulders, the other would move next to them and share the burden.

Together, they’d fought and bled, marched and sprinted, laughed and cried. And they had survived. No battlefield had possessed the audacity to usurp their claim to life. And no amount of grief and guilt was going to let her just stand by and watch him hit the water.

Because even if her friend didn’t think so, Zaiga deserved to _fucking live_.

Everything started to move again. The ocean’s spray, the soft winds, the obstructive clouds. It was all coming back.

She kept running.

_You will not fall._

One foot in front of the other.

_You will not fall._

Arms and fingers stretched to their limit.

_You will. Not. Fall._

And she caught him.

Her hands were grabbing his ankle, one of the last things she could have latched onto before he disappeared.

He was heavy. Much heavier than the lances she was used to carrying.

His mouth was agape. For a second, she felt both indignant rage and perverse satisfaction at his surprise.

Her arms hurt. Her throat hurt. She’d been screaming. She was still screaming.

Behind her came the sounds of panicked shouting and boots thundering on the wooden deck.

“The hell’s going–holy shit! There’s a man on the side!”

“What? Man overboard?”

“Get your ass over here give them a hand!”

“Someone get the bridge! Tell them to stop the engines!”

“There could be more in the water! Get those searchlights up now!”

A pair of arms, she didn’t know whose, circled around her waist. Another pair grabbed Zaiga’s other foot.

“We gotcha! We gotcha!”

“Steady. Pull on three. One. Two. Three!”

Together, they pulled. She wanted them to pull faster, pull harder.

All too slowly, they hauled him back onto the deck.

He just looked blankly back at her, and her arms began to tremble from the jolt of exertion. She let him go, then dropped to her knees while he fell on his back.

The pair who’d helped her came into view. One kneeled next to Zaiga while the other crouched in front of her.

“Hey there.” His voice was gentle, but she could see his body was tense, alert. “It’s alright. See that? We got him.”

She nodded numbly. Almost as quickly as it had come, the fury had flushed itself out of her system. She was tired. Gods above, was she tired.

“What’s your name?”

She saw what he was doing. He thought she was in shock. He was probably right. He was trying to get her to remain sharp with short, simple questions. She glimpsed the sign of a red cross on his uniform. He was a corpsman. That made her feel a little better.

“Gertrude…Albright…” It was difficult to get the words out. A fog was setting in around her thoughts. Her peripherals were slightly blurred.

“Okay, Gertrude. I need you to focus and stay with me just a little longer. Was there anyone else you saw go overboard?”

“No…”

“You’re absolutely certain?”

She shook her head. “It was just him.”

There was a lurch as the whole ship jerked backwards. Unprepared for the sudden movement, she sluggishly put her arms up to prevent herself from crashing into the deck. The corpsman had handled himself better, most likely because he’d been travelling and trained on vessels longer than she had.

“It’s okay,” he reassured her as he helped her back into a sitting position. “That was just the ship slowing down.”

Right. Someone had been calling for the battlegroup to stop and search for anyone else who might have gone over the railing. But she knew there wasn’t anyone else.

“It was just him,” she repeated, pointing at Zaiga’s prone form.

The corpsman nodded, finally believing her. “Just him,” he echoed.

* * *

She wasn’t very coherent when they’d questioned her further. But it looked like they understood enough.

She and Zaiga were taken to separate rooms in the sick bay.

The bed Zaiga was placed in had restraints.

The bed she was led to didn’t have restraints.

She wanted to see if he was alright.

She wanted to ask him so many things.

She wanted to understand why he didn’t trust her, why he’d tried to leave her and Easy.

But they wouldn’t let her see him.

She was told to rest.

_Not yet._

Someone stayed by her bed, again she didn’t care who.

They watched over her, tried to speak to her.

She mumbled a few words, but the adrenaline had long since worn off.

When her body finally crashed, she felt one last spark of dread, wondering if this was all a dream and that she would wake up to find him gone.


	7. While There is Life...

Shifting under the covers that someone had charitably thrown over her, Gertrude blinked the drowsiness out of her eyes. Despite the restless few hours of sleep she’d succumbed to, she still felt exhausted.

She remembered what had happened. Or rather, what had almost happened. She expected to feel something strong. Fear, resentment, self-pity, anything that could focus the stress of the past half week into a tangible emotion. But her heart chose to beat steady, and her mind remained largely blank.

“Good morning, Gertrude.”

Sitting in a chair on her left was Fleuret. Or rather, Sergeant Valois, leader of Easy Platoon’s 1st Infantry Squad and therefore Gertrude’s direct superior. She used her elbows to sit up and straightened her back, trying to at least give off a resemblance of coming to attention without actually standing.

“Good morning, Sergeant.”

After the loss of Sergeant Raz, Captain Wallace had had to fill the empty place of leadership. He wasn’t able to pull anyone from 2nd Squad for the duty, at risk of breaking unit cohesion. In light of her reformation towards firearms training and commendable service at and since the Battle of the Siegval Line, Fleuret had ended up earning a field promotion. She had taken the responsibility in stride and led the squad with her characteristic honour and valour at the Imperial capital.

Gertrude saw Fleuret shake her head and make a small sweeping motion with a hand. “No need for that right now. Here.”

She accepted and sipped the offered cup of water. The cool liquid brought some feeling back to her insides.

“Last night sounded like quite a scare, non?”

Gertrude didn’t answer immediately. She wanted to sort through her thoughts, but they were all whirling around too fast to comprehend. Seeing her pause, Fleuret’s face, which had been wearing a comforting smile, fell into an expression of remorse.

She finally found the words, the first thing that should have come out of her mouth when she’d woken up. “Is Zaiga okay?”

Her Sergeant nodded. “He is still in bed. The doctors wanted to keep him there, in case he…tried something again.”

Gertrude’s stomach churned as the image of the Darcsen being cuffed flashed through her mind.

“I’m sorry that it came to this,” Fleuret said. Her tone was soft. “There were days after the ceasefire when I saw the cracks as you did. But I didn’t pay enough attention to it.”

“None of us did,” Gertrude replied. She didn’t blame Fleuret, or anyone else from Easy. Not when she herself had been so oblivious, intentionally or otherwise. Her brain was starting to kick back into gear. “The war was over, or as close to over as it would ever be. We’d all lost people. We were all hurting, but…”

“But we all believed that we’d earned our happy ending. That we could pretend everything was fine and back to normal,” Fleuret finished for her when she’d trailed off. Gertrude nodded.

“Did Rebecca tell you about him?”

“Oui. She’s also informed Sergio and Captain Wallace.”

Gertrude sank into the mattress, or at least tried to. Hard beds appeared to be one of the few things in common for every service branch.

“If I had been a second slower…”

“You weren’t,” Fleuret said firmly. “And now, you’ve given him another chance.”

“Have I?” she couldn’t help but snap. Her emotions were coming back, and they were getting the better of her. Insecurity quickly transformed into frustration. No matter what Rebecca had told her yesterday, no matter what Fleuret was telling her now, she was back at square one. And when she could blame no one on the outside, that left only two culprits to alternate between. “Because I have given him chance after chance to explain himself. To tell me of these _demons_ that have chained themselves to him. And when I think understand what is happening, another layer comes up that I had never considered before because he refuses to be out with it all. Because I am not privy to hear it. Because he does not require my help. Because I am not worthy of showing that I care!”

Fleuret had remained silent during her rant. When Gertrude finished, the Gaulisian leant forward and interlocked her fingers. A silence followed in which Gertrude was not afraid to admit she wallowed in her own poignant thoughts. Fortunately, before she could continue on her way to a meltdown, Fleuret spoke.

“I cannot claim to know what Zaiga is thinking right now. But I can tell you what he told me during our stay in Schwarzgrad.”

* * *

Fleuret inwardly sighed in relief as the day’s negotiations came to an end.

Situated in the heart of enemy territory, surrounded on all sides and outnumbered over a thousand to one, the _Centurion’s_ surviving crew was in no position to put up a fight. Thankfully, it appeared they wouldn’t have to.

The Empire had thus far honoured the ceasefire and been amicable in discussing terms for peace. One did not have to be much of a cynic to wonder how permanent such a peace would be. But on the whole, Europa was ready to stop fighting for now.

Captain Wallace and Captain Morgen (who had now been permitted by Sergio to exchange his stretcher for a wheelchair) had been meeting with Imperial Supreme Command for the past couple of days. The immediate terms to iron out were the boundaries the _Centurion’s_ forces would live in until the Federation could send an extraction fleet. Bigger issues, such as territorial disputes, reparation claims and potential de-escalation policies would be addressed later, when they were able to re-establish proper contact with the Federation’s Eastern Europan Front Headquarters.

Fleuret and a couple of her soldiers from 1st Squad had been present at the diplomatic table, acting as the guard detail for their commanders. After hours of standing still, aside from a small recess in the middle, her legs and brain were equally ready to turn into jelly. Parade drills had nothing on this shit.

After dismissing Leonhardt and Rosetta, she decided to get some blood flowing back into her limbs by taking a short walk around the embassy’s halls. Considering the hundreds of people that were meant to staff the complex, many areas had been left unoccupied. That they could barely fill a quarter of the available rooms was also a sobering reminder of the staggering losses that had been inflicted on the Cygnus Fleet.

She heard footsteps around the corner and slowed her pace, so as to not bump into whoever was approaching. She was thankful for her foresight when she spotted Zaiga coming into view balancing a…was that a tea set?

“Whup! Sorry, Fle-uh, Sergeant!” the Darcsen called out. He tried to stand to attention, but quickly found himself shifting his feet as his load started slipping on its tray. Fleuret nevertheless appreciated the effort, but also wished he hadn’t done so, as it gave her an unpleasant reminder of just what events had led her to become entitled to the salute in the first place.

“It’s no problem,” she said. “May I ask what you are doing with that tea set, Zaiga?”

“Oh this?” he said. “Found this in the kitchens when we were digging around for supplies. Don’t know much about fancy stuff, but I thought it might make a good replacement for Gertrude’s set.”

“Did she break hers?”

Zaiga let out a snort of amusement. “Oh man, she’d be livid if she heard that. Nah, it went down with the _Centurion_. But at least she can get another one at all. The Imperials sure as hell aren’t gonna lend me their favourite pin-ups, uh, actually never mind that last part.”

Had she not just stood through half a day’s worth of political slap fighting, Fleuret was sure her code of chivalry would have had a few words to say. For now, she elected to just raise a brow and not comment on his more…wanton possessions. ‘C'est la vie’ and all that. But still…

“It is quite thoughtful of you to have singled out such a gift for your friend,” she said, using a hand to hide the quirk of her lips. “One might even say you are courting her.”

A tiny part of Fleuret hoped her assertion would cause Zaiga to drop the tea set and let out a spectacularly cliché series of denials. That tiny part was quickly stomped on when the Darcsen just frowned in thought, then shook his head.

“Eh, I’ve never really seen her that way.”

“Oh? How come?” Her inner gossip was rearing its head.

“Don’t get me wrong, we’re close, but we’re not like that. And it just feels right to have her with me without all the…mushy stuff. Especially after we lost…well…you know.”

Fleuret nodded in sympathy as Zaiga’s lively attitude turned sombre. She didn’t quite understand his meaning, but she knew she probably shouldn’t push. “I’m sorry for bringing him up.”

“You didn’t mean to,” he said. “It’s just rough, sometimes. Expecting to hear him yelling at us to get up at 0430 hours, or starting a fistfight with the Marines, then realising he’s gone.”

“His presence has been greatly missed,” acknowledged Fleuret. An awkward lull formed, as they stood in an impromptu moment of silence.

“Honestly…I don’t know what I’d have done without her,” said Zaiga.

“Hmm?”

“When…when he…I lost him, one of the only reasons I kept going was because she was still next to me. Egging me on every day to keep my chin up.”

“But not as a romantic partner.”

“No,” said Zaiga. “As someone who I could run into the gates of hell with. And someone who’s pulled me away from it more times than I want to think about.”

“I…think I see,” Fleuret said. There was a ‘clink’, and she noticed the Darcsen subtly adjusting his grip on the tea set. “I should let you go. That looks quite heavy.”

“Oh, yeah. Thanks,” said Zaiga. He resumed walking. “See you ‘round.”

“Of course.”

* * *

Gertrude remembered the tea set. She still carried it with her. She was starting to feel numb again. “So…I was his shield…his bedrock then…but not anymore?”

“I think,” Fleuret said slowly, “if it were not for you, he would have gone over that railing a long time ago.”

She hadn’t thought of it like that. Could one person truly be such a powerful vessel for another’s will to live? Regardless, it hadn’t been enough.

“He still tried to jump.”

“And it looked like one of the most difficult decisions he’d made in his entire life,” said her Sergeant. “And most certainly one that he is regretting now.”

Gertrude sighed and rubbed at her temples. The double meanings, the interpretations, the missing links. Nothing was right. She let out a breathy laugh, then began to cry. Without hesitation, Fleuret moved to embrace her, and she kept hugging her while she wept.

“I don’t understand,” Gertrude choked out. “Why is he suffering like this? Why aren’t more of us…why am _I_ not suffering like him, when we all went through the same fight?”

“Perhaps,” began Fleuret, “he lost the wrong people to the war. Just as Rebecca lost so many of her friends. Just as Curtis would be if he lost Eileen. And just as how you may have been if you had lost him.”

She didn’t know if she should believe her Sergeant’s rationale. But it seemed so simple, yet so very clear. And for some reason, that made everything both a little better and a little worse. Why was it that she needed someone from the outside to tell her something so obvious? And if Zaiga’s plight was related to something that couldn’t be fixed, couldn’t be resurrected, then…

“It isn’t fair…it isn’t fair that he’s broken by the war, when so many of us remain intact.”

“He’s not broken,” Fleuret murmured as she stroked her head. “He came close, very close. But he’s not. Not completely.”

“How do you know this? How can you say it with such confidence?”

“Because the alternative is that we are too late. That we cannot still try to help him.”

“But he–“

“Gertrude,” said Fleuret, “in the event you haven’t noticed, our platoon is full of people who have faced great obstacles. But every time, there were those who looked out for them and brought them back from the edge.”

She wasn’t wrong. Easy had quite the dysfunctional cast. Millennia had lost her fiancé to the war. Godwin and Aoife had grown up under the boot of persecution. Leonhardt was still searching for his missing surrogate mother. Captain Wallace and Lieutenant Victor had felt the burdens of command more than any one of them. Everyone had suffered. But they had all found the resolve to keep going. And yet…

“This time is different.” She was denying. It would be so easy to throw her hands up and proclaim all was lost. There was no solution, no answer, no cheat…at least none that wouldn’t require her to face Zaiga one more time.

“Is it? The only difference here is that we have not reached a proper resolution.”

“If I try again, I will only fail once more.” She was scared he would turn away, as he’d done before. But the match had been struck. The embers of her spirit were being reignited. She wanted to help Zaiga. She just needed a little more.

“Is that what you call yesterday night? A failure? Because from what I’ve seen, grabbing him was the greatest success you could have ever hoped to achieve, right when both you and Zaiga needed it most. Do you want all of your efforts, your memories, your friendship to be for nought?”

There it was. The ultimatum. Her answer wouldn’t change what the rest of Easy Platoon would do. They would swarm Zaiga with all their support and give him the help that he needed. But would they succeed? Would he ever learn to want their help? Would he be able to truly move on and find that spark of life without her? And above all, could she live with herself knowing that, in the face of turmoil, she’d turned her back on her friend because it had been too fucking hard?

“No.”

“No what?”

“No, I will not give up now,” she said, retracting her arms from Fleuret, who did the same. She stared her in the eye. “I will make him see that his life is worth living, even if I must knock the sense into him.”

Her proclamation was met with a wide smile. “Bon choix, jeune femme.”


	8. Let the Legend Come to Life

When she saw Zaiga, her heart ached.

A man, whose light had once burned bright in equal parts conflict and companionship lay before her, near lifeless. His eyes were open. Occasionally, they blinked. He was alive in the clinical sense. But damn her if he didn’t look like a shell of his former self. He wasn’t cuffed anymore, but the restraints still dangled near him.

As Fleuret had presided over her, Zaiga had his own ‘caretaker’ from Easy. Rebecca was sat next to the Darcsen. She looked about as tired as Gertrude felt. When she approached the two, Rebecca nodded a curt greeting.

“Have you been here long?”

“A few hours. Scott was here before me.”

Gertrude wanted to ask her how Zaiga had been but refrained. She would ask him herself.

“Thank you for watching over him.”

“Not like I couldn’t,” Rebecca said. “Captain’s orders.”

A few seconds passed before she sighed, placing her hands at the back of her head. “Fuck…I’m getting sick of watching people die.”

“He will not be the next.”

The conviction in her voice caused Rebecca to look up.

“You ready to talk to him?”

“I am.”

They stared at each other, one gaze evaluating the other. After a while, Rebecca nodded, rose from her chair and headed for the door.

“In that case, I’ll give you some privacy. Sergio and Karen will be keeping an ear out, so just give a shout if something…drastic happens.”

She remembered their talk the day before, and felt a surge of…something. Confidence? Solidarity? Faith? Whatever it was, she had to let Rebecca know. Had to give both of them hope.

“Rebecca,” she called out. Rebecca turned around with quizzical expectation. “Not one more.“

A wry smile came to the engineer’s lips. “Not one more.”

And with that, it was just her and Zaiga. She sidled up next to the bed, sat in the chair Rebecca had left her, and waited.

* * *

“I’m sorry, sis.”

His voice was hoarse. As Fleuret had done for her, she gave him a cup of water. He didn’t move to drink, so she had to tilt it slowly into his mouth.

After a few gulps, he sounded somewhat better.

“I didn’t want…I never meant to put you through any of this.”

For all her bravado, Gertrude wasn’t quite sure where to begin. In the half hour or so she had been at his side, she’d gone over dozens of rehearsals of what to say, but ended up drawing a blank.

So, she settled with the one word that had plagued her emotions, her thoughts, and her conscience since the past evening.

“Why?”

Why did you do it? Why do you blame yourself? Why do you want to end it all?

Why didn’t you tell me?

* * *

“Alright, listen up!”

Raz’s bellow echoed around the _Centurion’s_ cargo hold, which served as its armoury, vehicle depot and R&D Facility. Nearly two hundred soldiers were frantically gearing up for a fight. Magazines were shoved into pouches, parkas and caps thrown on hastily, and crates of Ragnaid primed and distributed for use. However, the cacophony of voices that came with the mobilisation ceased at the Sergeant’s call.

“Here’s the plan. We’re gonna split up into four groups. Groups 1 through 3, in order of 1st, 2nd, and Easy Platoons, will launch a series of diversion assaults against the Imps surrounding the ship. They’re gonna provide cover for Group 4, led by me, to sneak past their lines and sabotage the generators that are powering the tesla-nets.”

1st and 2nd referred to the _Centurion’s_ complement of Edinburgh’s Royal Marines, who designated their platoons with numbers, rather than letters.

“Once Group 4 flips the switch, everyone is gonna haul ass back to the _Centurion_ , and we’re all gonna have a nice hot cup of cocoa as we leave these idiots to chew on their own frozen balls, clear?”

A resounding affirmative followed.

“That’s what I wanna hear! Now get back to arming up, we don’t have much time before the whiteout hits! Easy Platoon, assemble at main exit ASAP!”

“Yes, Sergeant!” Zaiga said, along with the other Rangers.

Once they were thoroughly stocked on weapons and equipment, Easy Platoon stood in formation in front of Raz, Claude, Kai and Riley. Claude had taken a step back and was letting his best friend give the final details of the briefing. Zaiga noted the officer’s ashen face and clenched fists. Something wasn’t right.

“Out of all the units in this breakout operation,” stated Raz, “Group 4 will be in the most danger. It will need to move fast and be prepared for close quarters combat. When the power’s cut, it will be furthest out of all the groups from the _Centurion_ , and will be surrounded by the most hostiles if and when their cover’s blown. Chances of survival for them will be slim to none.”

Zaiga had been suspicious when Raz had rallied the troops without Claude’s oversight. Now, looking at the Captain’s forlorn expression, and seeing Kai whipping her head around to look in alarm at the Sergeant, it was clear the decision to use the sacrifice play hadn’t been made with transparency, never mind unanimous consent.

“Therefore, as Group 4’s leader, I need one volunteer from the shock troopers to go with me. If no one volunteers I’ll go by myself. Anyone who doesn’t want to be considered, stay where you are, and there will be no judgement or consequences.”

A burning sensation formed in Zaiga’s stomach. Raz was going on a suicide run. He’d seen the mission parameters and accepted he wouldn’t return.

“Any shock trooper who wants to go with me, and be a big damn hero, step forward now.”

The sound of boots on steel reached his ears, as Zaiga heeded the request. He wasn’t the only one. Every shock trooper from Easy Platoon had moved out of their formation and were at attention facing Raz. From the ruthless grins on Simon and Viola to the stoic acceptance of Ryan and Scott, none had faltered. All were ready.

They were in his way.

If Raz was charging into hell, Zaiga was going with him. He had to go. He had to make sure Raz would come back safe, or failing that, he would revel in the comfort that he could die in the line of duty, in one last glorious fight with his bro. He couldn’t let the others deny him that. He wouldn’t.

Raz hadn’t picked the volunteer yet. This was his chance. Zaiga moved to stride towards the Sergeant.

He made it all of three steps before a hand landed on his shoulder.

His pride snarled. He turned around, ready to lay into whoever was trying to hold him back.

A pair of hazel eyes greeted his glare. It was Vancey.

Her face was flushed, her reddened cheeks hinting at the bottle she’d most likely been nursing this morning. A lock of her untidy hair went down to her nose before curving to one side. The smell of liquor settled around her like a cloud. She was unkempt, shabby and lopsided as ever.

And yet, she was so focused. Her pupils were sharp and reactive. There were crinkles around her eyes to match her smile. Her little grin had so many depths. Boundless pride for his courage. Heartfelt remorse for the losses in the battle to come. Tangible hope for the future.

A future that he should be a part of.

The rumble of indignation in his chest died down, as she gently shook her head.

“It’s too early for you, kiddo.”

In that moment, when Vancey, good ol’ drunk, deranged, yet dangerously deadly Vancey was holding him back from joining his bro on one last roaring rampage, he felt like a boy again, being softly chastised for doing something foolish.

When Vancey took her hand off his shoulder, he didn’t move. He watched as she, for once in the platoon’s living memory, marched with perfect precision up to Raz.

The Sergeant looked at her, as she saluted.

“You know what you’re signing up for, Private?”

“Yeah,” said Vancey, as she lowered her right hand, made it into a fist and punched her other palm. Her back was turned to him, but Zaiga practically heard her grin turn just that little bit feral. “It’s time to get serious.”

Zaiga stared at his bro, hoping against hope he would say no. That Vancey couldn’t be trusted. That he needed someone more reliable. That he needed Zaiga.

Raz’s nod of approval and subsequent orders for the rest of Easy Platoon to move out hurt more than any bullet or shrapnel wound.

* * *

“I was weak,” said Zaiga, eyes closed, and head tilted away from Gertrude. “I could have said something, brushed off her hand, marched with her up to Raz, maybe even give her a beatdown to show everyone that _I_ should’ve been chosen. And then, maybe…”

“Maybe what?” Gertrude whispered.

The Darcsen balled his hands up and, for the first time since she’d sat down, turned his head to look at her.

“I don’t know. Maybe I could have changed what happened. Maybe I could have sacrificed myself to let Raz get back to the ship. Maybe he and Vancey would still be alive.”

His eyes were flicking up, down, left and right, looking for a way out.

“Maybe then I won’t have to see them smiling at me one moment, then screaming it’s all my fault the next. Maybe I won’t throw up after eating or wake my bunkmates with my nightmares. Maybe I won’t have to ask myself every day why I’m here and they’re not. Maybe I won’t get the urge to drop to my knees and start begging for forgiveness when I see Claude or Riley or, oh god, Kai!”

He paused to catch his breath, chest rising and falling with his trembling exhales. When he spoke again, he was much calmer. Much more eerie.

“But it’s too late...there’s nothing I can do…Nothing left for me except all this shit in my head. Nothing left but for me to know that _Raz and Vancey died because of me_. I’m the worst kind of murderer, the one who didn’t have the guts to do what was right and die like a man. When we drop anchor, I’m going to the MPs. I’m going to tell them everything, and they’ll see. They’ll see what I’ve done. And they’ll shoot me for the coward I–“

Zaiga stopped. Not because he’d come across a world-shaking epiphany, or he’d felt the sudden urge to clam up once more.

Zaiga stopped because Gertrude had punched him.


	9. When I Remember Me

His first memories were that of living in an orphanage. Whether his parents had died or abandoned him, no one could tell him. Or maybe no one cared enough to tell him. Darcsens didn’t get much sympathy.

He’d grown up as a thug, a delinquent. Skipping school and pickpocketing passers-by became second nature. He appreciated those who gave him a wide berth. They were preferable to the teachers and other authority figures who tried to cajole, or more oftentimes threaten, him into socially acceptable behaviour.

He’d been 13 when he first saw Raz. It was autumn and he was lying under a tree, wrapping himself up with a scarf he’d stolen from the girls’ needlework class. There had been a lot of shouting, and he’d seen a group of boys vaulting over the school gate. They were soon followed by the headmaster, who had slightly more trouble getting his portly form over the locked entrance. A pair of police officers (he called them ‘chokers’ for their high-collared tunics) had seen the ruckus and chased after the teenagers.

The sight of other children running amok wasn’t anything new to him, especially in and near the slums. But there had been one boy in the group, a few years older than himself. He had the dark blue hair of his race, and a fervent visage that spoke of adventure and excitement. He wore a defiant grin and was shouting instructions at the other boys. Their enthusiastic compliance made it clear they saw him as their leader.

Splitting off one by one, they had disappeared into the crowds and streets of daytime Hafen. But even long after they were gone, he’d thought of that one boy and the waves of impulsive authority he’d exuded. The animated gestures of his arms as he’d directed the others. The force of nature that had come crashing into his peripherals.

The prospect of being alone no longer seemed so ideal.

A week passed before he saw the group again. They were kicking around a ball, laughing at some joke one of them had made and tossing glares to anyone who got too close. He’d ignored their surly warnings and walked straight up to them, to their leader.

“I wanna join you.”

Most of them had guffawed at him. He may have only been a few years younger, but at that point he may as well have been a toddler. Their leader hadn’t laughed, however. He’d crouched down to look him at eye level. The unexpected show of accommodation from their chief shut the others up.

“Really? What does a pipsqueak like you want with us?”

The demeaning nickname, while not spoken with hostility, brought some light jeers back.

“I wanna be like you. Cool and strong.”

In hindsight, he should have been more embarrassed with his wishful simplicity. But he must have struck a chord with the leader, as he wasn’t subsequently jettisoned from their little gathering with a boot to his ass. After some thinking, he’d nodded and offered him his hand.

“Well…I _am_ pretty cool. What’s your name, kid?”

After a second of staring dumbfoundedly at the invitation, he’d taken the hand. “Zaiga.”

“Nice to meet ya, Zaiga. I’m Raz.”

* * *

There were many nights he’d gone to sleep bruised from a fight, in a holding cell, or both. But he’d found a family. A family made up of the youth that had felt rejected, segregated or ostracised by society. And every time, no matter what his physical state, he’d ended the day with a smile.

He’d been 17 when Raz had announced his intent to volunteer for the Federation’s Army. Two decades had passed since the First Europan War, and their powder keg of a continent was fast approaching its boiling point once more. Although Gallia was a neutral nation aligned to neither the Federation, nor the Empire, its overflowing Ragnite reserves would always ensure there was a set of crosshairs on its sovereignty. And while Raz had acknowledged that the Federation was probably just as interested in assimilating their country as the Empire, it had the tact to at least appear to respect its borders. ‘Better the devil you know’ wasn’t applicable when that same devil of the Empire’s blatant expansionism was visibly reaching for a knife and fork.

He’d enlisted the same day as Raz. If there was one thing his bro had instilled in him, it was loyalty. From boot camp to their induction into Edinburgh’s multinational elite Ranger Corps, he’d stuck by Raz as his right-hand man.

Shortly before their official deployment to Milt, they and nearly fifty other Rangers had formed Easy Platoon. Some had been from Hafen or Gallia too, and had trained with them for the past few months. But many were from other nations. Of the dozens of new people he’d had to meet, there had been one particular lancer assigned to his squad…Private Gertrude Albright.

In their first conversation, he’d thought he had heard all he needed to hear. She was snobby, arrogant and racist. The perfect noblewoman who couldn’t tell the difference between the very people who would be keeping her alive, and a stain on her boot’s sole.

But, while much of what she’d said had been inexcusable, there had been a little nugget of wisdom in her spiel. Since becoming involved with Hafen’s juvenile gangs, he’d developed the reputation of being Raz’s enforcer, the guard dog to the mad dog. And until that day, he was content with such a position. But when Gertrude had scorned his people, his ability and his attitude, he’d done little to rebuke her other than call for his bro to bail him out. It was then he’d realised that his loyalty to Raz had become twisted into overdependence.

And so, he’d set out to train to become a better soldier. One that could stand on his own and for himself. Day in, day out, he’d worked his ass off. He wasn’t afraid to admit that a large part of his motivation had also been to do with showing up the stuck-up bitch who thought she could talk down to him. Regardless, between and throughout their early battles on the Eastern Front, he’d pushed himself to his limits, and then gone a bit further. And every step of the way of his new unofficial regimen had been Vancey.

Initially, he’d accepted the drunkard’s offer to teach him because she was just that good. But over time, he’d seen something else. A glimpse of warmth and nostalgia. A flash of pain and regret. A hint at the nightmares and ghosts that could only be staved off with an inconceivable amount of booze. A sign of guardianship and devotion that went beyond the relationship between student and teacher.

Vancey had been present when Gertrude had offered the olive branch and an apology for her words. He’d glanced at his fellow shock trooper, and seen her wearing a faraway look, which was quickly replaced by her trademark sloshed grin.

She’d continued to mentor him, as well as a handful of other Rangers from Easy who she’d offered her surprisingly deep and proficient bank of knowledge and experience to. From their stay in Forward Operating Base Lindbergh to their desperate fight against the Winter Witch (both in the meteorological and Valkyrian sense), he’d unconsciously accepted her as one of his closest companions, making space for her to sit with Raz in his little family. As the days rolled on by, he became aware of the maternal aura that occasionally washed over him, making him feel safe, treasured and cared for in a way that was so different from the camaraderie that he enjoyed with gang members or even other soldiers.

And then, she’d died with Raz at the Forest of Ice.

* * *

Losing the confident, boorish, invincible sibling that an only child could merely dream of had been bad enough. But losing Vancey too, because he hadn’t been quick enough to take her place at his bro’s side…when he could have killed that one more Imperial if it meant everyone survived and made it back…when he could have died for her to live…It had been too much.

The Battle of Schwarzgrad that followed their escape from the trap had been a welcome distraction. He’d made sure every Imperial in his sights had fallen to the ground with not so much as a twitch to defy the bullets that riddled their bodies. But, without warning, it was over. There was a ceasefire. And not even Doctor Belgar’s attempted hijacking and ultimate sinking of the _Centurion_ after negotiations had commenced could scrub the overwhelming hole in his heart that he could no longer ignore.

For over two months, as they’d sheltered themselves in the embassies, he’d replayed that fateful moment when he’d hesitated. He went back to those exact seconds, where Vancey had shaken her head and told him to stay with the main force. He felt the backdrop of remorse smother his resolve, his will to go on.

But there had still been Gertrude.

Once the embodiment of everything he’d thought was wrong with the world, the two of them had learnt to work in tandem with each other. Many a time, Raz had chosen him to cover the noble’s advance on an approaching tank. He would sweep the infantry with suppressing fire as they circled around the armour to hit their vulnerable radiators, or at least their side plating. She would make sure the backblast area was clear before letting a primed warhead fly.

At the Battle of the Siegval Line, Easy Platoon had been stretched to the brink. Take one area before moving to support George Platoon on their left flank. Cover Item Platoon’s withdrawal, then serve as the second wave to encircle a line of pillboxes. Act as spotters for an artillery battery to bombard a fortress and, following that, link up with Fox Platoon to capture and defend a tactically crucial hill. By the time the Empire had withdrawn, everyone was running on nothing but grit and the few drops of water left in their canteens. The Federation had suffered horrendous casualties in the day long engagement. But they had won.

Credited with being one of, if not the most important deciding factors for their admittedly pyrrhic victory, Easy Platoon had been given the honour of planting the Federation’s flag on the centre of the Siegval Line’s remains. Claude had called for a spontaneous verbal vote to decide which members of the platoon should carry the flag. Unsurprisingly, everyone received nominations for their various heroics on both the individual and collective level. But six Rangers were chosen in the end, and he and Gertrude had been among them.

It was when they were carrying the heavy pole with the cloth bearing the Federation’s insignia that he’d accepted Gertrude as part of his family too – the older sister who had learnt of her shortcomings, but could also inspire him to see his own faults, and grow and excel to previously unforeseen heights. When they’d planted the flag into the charred remains of the Empire’s greatest military strongpoint, barring Schwarzgrad itself, he’d hugged her. And the two of them had let the exhaustion, the joy and the anguish of the battle bring each other to tears.

He’d never meant to burden her with his inner turmoil. She didn’t deserve to be dragged down with him to hell. And he _would_ go to hell, if such a place existed. He’d made the mistake of relying too much on Raz. He would not repeat that same mistake again with her.

So, he’d tried to hide his pain and guilt for as long as he could. Some days were easier than others, with the rest of the _Centurion’s_ crew to laugh and jest with. Others were near unbearably brutal, and he’d had to use all his strength to just rise from bed and talk without having a meltdown. But the faces of Raz and Vancey never went away, and eventually it became too much to bear. By the time they were able to board the _Unrelenting_ and leave Schwarzgrad behind, he’d found himself drowning in his own emotions.

But an option had presented itself. An option that, before the war, would have been unthinkable for him. An option so terrible, yet now so enticing, that he wasn’t sure if going through with it would be the ultimate act of courage or cowardice. Either way, it could solve all his problems. After all, if there was no mind to torment, no culprit to convict, he could finally be free.

He’d spent hours on the railing of the _Unrelenting’s_ main deck, just looking down at the ocean. When someone asked him what he was doing, he would make up some excuse and they’d have a normal conversation. But after they left, or when he returned there the next day, he would resume staring and thinking.

When he’d admitted to Gertrude that he was still seeing and hearing Raz and Vancey, he’d made up his mind. He could no longer deceive his comrades, his friends, his family. He would try one last alternative, by finding a way to render himself so thoroughly senseless that he would be comatose. It was the only other way to make the voices and guilt stop. If he couldn’t make it quiet that way, he would visit the railing one final time.

He’d gone to Sergio, and asked him for something that could let him sleep for ‘a while’. The surgeon had been surprisingly honest with him. Called Blue-88, It was a pill introduced shortly after the Empire’s initial assaults. Caught off guard and scrambling to get more soldiers on the front, the Federation had started administering it to troops returning from battle, even those who were wounded but still capable of fighting. They would fall asleep, wake up 24 to 72 hours later, take a shower, be given a weapon, and be sent back to the fight.

It was perfect.

But Sergio had refused to give him any. There were too many negative side effects – inferior reaction times, drowsiness, respiratory problems, reduced capacity for higher order thinking and, ironically, issues falling asleep after a few days of not taking the pill. Higher and more frequent dosages meant higher risks, and those unfortunate enough to be ping-ponged between the front and the rear, therefore forced to take Blue-88 multiple times, almost always ended up dying before they returned to their posts. Sergio couldn’t and wouldn’t risk the same happening to Zaiga.

He wasn’t angry Sergio for refusing to grant him the respite he so desired. He understood that he was looking out for his health. But Sergio himself didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand how much he was hurting. And he couldn’t berate the doctor’s ignorance either, when the only way to be rid of that ignorance was for him to lose the people that meant the world to him too.

He’d waited until the sun had set. Lower visibility meant less people could see him. When he stood in front of the railing, he’d expected to feel something: fear at the prospect of facing his end, or maybe even elation that the pain would stop.

After one last search through his heart, he’d found that feeling. It was distant and muted, like something trying to reach him through a brick wall. He contemplated on what it was and found that it was sadness. Sadness that he would be leaving behind so many people. Claude, Kai, Neige, Stanley and, of course, Gertrude. They would likely never find his body. Tomorrow morning, they’d wake up and notice he’d disappeared. They’d search the entire ship, every nook and cranny, for him. But they’d find nothing. And then the realisation would set in that he was gone. Even if he’d turned down every offer of help, the fact they cared enough to try to help in the first place exacerbated his misery. He wished he could say sorry to them for the grief his weakness would cause.

But he couldn’t, and he needed to accept that.

He closed his eyes, and the pangs of sorrow faded away into a deep, lasting calm. Slowly, he climbed the railing until he was standing on the bars, wind whistling through his short hair and the spray of the water below hitting his skin. He was ready. Just one last push and it would be all ov–

“ _Zaiga!_ ”

That voice…no…no, no, no, no, please no, don’t let her see him like this! She didn’t deserve the trauma that seeing his end would cause. He didn’t want–he couldn’t–

He lost his footing, and the world slowed around him. He was falling…falling…falling…

There was a sharp tug on his right leg, and he saw Gertrude with her hands around his ankle. Her face was scrunched with the effort of holding him up. Through gritted teeth, he could hear her calling for help. Someone! Anyone! Please!

She was soon joined by a pair of Sailors. The first latched onto his other foot while the second tried to anchor Gertrude, who had been steadily slipping with him, back to the deck.

He didn’t move, forcing them to drag him all the way up and away from the edge.

When Gertrude collapsed after pulling him back aboard, he hadn’t done anything to help her. How could he? Not only had he failed at ending the nightmares, but he’d just ensured the only family he had left would hate him for eternity. She would despise him for trying to leave her, especially after he’d given her the assurance that he was fine, he would still be alive and kicking the next day.

_I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please…I’m so, so, sorry._

* * *

When she’d come to visit him the next morning, he’d expected the worst – accusations, insults, judgements, all of which he would have taken gladly. But she’d just sat down and waited.

Eventually, he could take the silence no longer, and started explaining everything.

After a minute or so, he was just rambling, saying whatever came to mind. When he talked about surrendering himself to the Military Police, he didn’t even realise he was openly scheming, or care if his plans were theoretically sound. There were still avenues to pushing away the voices he could take. He just had to–

And then she’d punched him.

_Hard._

There wasn’t much pain. He supposed even in his pathetic state, his body could still supply adrenaline when needed. He blinked several times as his brain tried to process the fact that he’d just been hit.

He was still processing it when he felt a weight on his chest and a pair of arms around his neck.

“You idiot…”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He could only stare as Gertrude buried her face into his shoulder. Despite the stinging on his own face in lieu of her strike, it felt…

He was taken back to Vancey’s last smile, using a look meant to symbolise happiness for something so sad. He thought back to when she would clap him on the back after he’d set a new best time for his 10k run or give a sharp yell of encouragement as she tossed him a spare magazine. He thought of Raz offering him a fist bump or trusting him to be the vanguard of their squad’s next charge. He thought of Gertrude herself. All the times they would cover each other in combat. Her invitation for him to share tea with her in the evening. Every instance where she’d offered to lend an ear and _just let him talk_. He remembered the hug they’d shared at the Siegval Line. How it, and so many memories with her, Raz, and Vancey, had contained the traces of emotion he’d grown so accustomed to yearning for. Acceptance, support, consolation, love.

And now, here he was in the arms of Gertrude. The same person who’d stomped on his pride when they’d first met. The same person who’d inspired him to start on the road to his own independence. The same person who, not five seconds ago, had nearly knocked a couple of his teeth out with her fist. And for the first time in his short, checkered and violent life, he openly recognised another person’s unrestricted love.

Love of someone who’d watched their squadmate, friend, and brother in all but blood try to kill himself and wanted him to realise he didn’t have to try again.

Love that he had deceived, denied, and damn near discarded.

“You dumb, foolish, _incomprehensibly stupid idiot!_ ”

Her words echoed in his head. They were the same words she’d thrown at him in Waldrand. He’d nearly died that day, rushing headfirst into an enemy position to grenade their machine gun nest. But she’d forgiven his recklessness then, because he’d put himself at risk for the platoon, for the war. What did he have to show for his actions yesterday?

The insult, so barbed and biting on the surface, but so full of tender emotion and begging for him to see the light, was the final straw. And like last night when she’d grabbed onto his ankle and let loose a cry of terror for his life, he wept. Yesterday, he’d wept for the pain that would still be present, and the suffering he thought he was waylaying onto the others. Today, he wept for his ignorance, of how close he’d come to making the biggest mistake of his life. And unlike yesterday, he also raised his arms and hugged back.

* * *

He received a lot of visitors over the next couple of days.

He was still confined to his bed and room. Meals were delivered to him, and a male nurse or doctor had to accompany him to use the restroom. He was confined, but rarely lonely.

Rosetta and Nico sat next to him at breakfast time and they’d had a long talk about religion and philosophy. He found himself enjoying their discussions on topics concerning spirituality and the meaning of life. It probably helped that they didn’t try to convert or force a doctrine on him.

Jean, Hannah, and Stanley came by and tried to break him out for a walk around the ship to stretch his legs. Sergio had quickly stopped them, doing the unthinkable by actually forcing a tie with Jean in an arm-wrestling competition to determine whether Zaiga could leave or not. He tried not to laugh when both the doctor and lancer played off the match as nothing, only to wince and rub at their sore muscles when they thought no one was looking.

He was also visited by Vancey’s other ‘students’, and they’d looked back on just how much the crocked commando had guided them. Neige mentioned how she’d helped her stop her hands shaking during combat. Aulard remembered many days she’d chatted with him about the evolution of armoured warfare and how he could better assist the platoon’s vehicles in battle. Jester told him of how she’d helped him to hone his proficiency at spotting enemies and judging distances for the platoon’s grenadiers.

Many had been taken under the intoxicated shock trooper’s wing at some point in the war. Some of them owed their lives to her lessons. All who knew her hidden depth of just wanting a better tomorrow for the next generation of combatants would miss her, from her inebriated stagger to her pearls of wisdom, and the rare, wistful grin that would grace her lips.

When Kai, Claude, and Riley dropped by, they’d spoken for a while, reminiscing about their childhoods in Hafen. They shared a lot of memories about Raz, particularly his various misdeeds and blunders. But they also remembered his radiant strength, his boundless courage, and all the times when he’d shone the brightest out of all of them. Unrivalled. Unstoppable. A big damn hero.

Everything felt…not quite good, but better. There were still times when he could hear Raz and Vancey in his head. Still times when they whispered both quiet assurances and sharp accusations. Still times when he found it hard to breathe or had his mind drawn back to the railing. But he made sure to always return to the real world, a place that had suffered unfathomable loss and destruction, but also a place full of people who cared for him and would miss him dearly, should he ever decide to go.

Perhaps the nightmares would never truly leave him. Perhaps he would always be prickled by guilt and regret. But he would endure it. He would endure the pain, the failures and the grief. He would endure with the many who chose to stand with him and share the burden.

He would continue through whatever dark days would come. There would be times when everything became too much. And when that happened, he would make sure to let in his friends, his family, and ask for help.

For the peace that Raz, Vancey, and so many others had paid the ultimate price for, he would no longer wish for death.

And for the peace that Gertrude, Claude, Kai, and everyone else continued to strive towards, he would wish for life.


	10. Epilogue – The Beauty That Still Remains

A light breeze swept through the springtime air, as Gertrude and Zaiga walked through the rows of headstones.

Ahead of them were First Sergeant Schulen, Angie and Rags. Behind, Captain Wallace was wheeling Lieutenant Miller’s chair. In the midst of what many considered to be the core of Easy Platoon, Gertrude would be lying if she said she didn’t feel a little out of place. But they’d assured her she deserved to be here as much as anyone else. And besides, Zaiga had wanted her to come too.

When First Sergeant Schulen turned left, she knew they’d found the right ones.

They approached a set of graves, distinguishable from the thousands of others with the unique names and numbers of their inscriptions.

Already present near their destination were Lieutenant Victor and Corporal Albee, the former kneeling on the grass and the latter standing. Hearing footsteps, the two looked their way before inclining their heads in a silent greeting. They replied in kind, understanding their wish to remain undisturbed. Passing by Fox Platoon’s only survivors, Gertrude took note of the engraving.

**CHRISTEL WARD  
** **PRIVATE FIRST CLASS  
** **EDINBURGH ARMY  
** **32ND ARMOURED RANGER CORPS  
** **SECOND EUROPAN WAR  
** **30 AUG 1912 – 27 OCT 1935**

Half a dozen placings down the line, Zaiga stopped, even though First Sergeant Schulen was still walking. Gertrude halted too. When she saw the name, she understood why. She turned to Captain Wallace and Lieutenant Miller, who’d caught up to them.

“Sir. May Zaiga and I remain here for the time being?”

Captain Wallace glanced where she had, then nodded. “Of course.”

When the two officers had passed, she saw Zaiga walk up to the gravestone.

**VANCEY FIORÉ  
** **PRIVATE  
** **EDINBURGH ARMY  
** **32ND ARMOURED RANGER CORPS  
** **SECOND EUROPAN WAR  
** **6 NOV 1908 – 28 NOV 1935**

Zaiga sat down, legs halfway drawn up to his chest and held in place by his arms. She knelt beside him and folded her hands in her lap.

“Hey, Vancey,” he said, head bowed. “Guess what? War’s over.”

He smiled, looking for all intents and purposes like someone narrating a letter. Maybe he was.

“We didn’t win…We didn’t lose either. But we still lost a lot. I…think about them too. The ones who aren’t coming back.”

She felt him lean into her.

“When we were heading home, some stuff happened. Mostly in my head. I did some…real stupid shit. Went to a dark place. Nearly got myself…well…”

She wrapped an arm around him, and he did the same for her.

“But it’s okay now. Sis over here put me back on my feet. Damn near gave me a concussion doing it too.”

She blushed at his casual tone. She’d apologised over and over for punching Zaiga, offering him the chance to take a free swing at her in return. But he’d just grinned and waved it off. A sigh came out of the Darcsen and she felt his shoulders droop.

“The day you left, I don’t know if I could’ve done anything to change what happened. But, after the hell I put myself through, I think I understand how it must’ve been like for you…And I want you to know that I’m sorry.”

He wiped at his eyes.

“I used to be sorry I wasn’t the one to leave. A part of me still is. But now, I’m also sorry that I couldn’t see your own pain…not well enough. I’m sorry that I couldn’t reach out to you and try to help you the way you helped me and so many others. I’m sorry that leaving us was the only choice you thought you had, to get rid of your own demons.”

Gertrude squeezed Zaiga a little tighter.

“But I hope, wherever you are now, you can see your old squad again. I hope you’ll be able to talk with them and see that you don’t have to carry so much of the blame and sadness on your own.”

He covered his mouth and nose briefly to hide a sniffle.

“Thank you…for giving me another chance. I just wish you could’ve been here too…Please, just rest now. And I’ll make sure to raise a glass for you.”

* * *

They’d remained at Vancey’s grave for a few minutes. When Zaiga let out a long exhale and patted her shoulder, they rose, saluted, and made their way to the other members of Easy. Captain Wallace and Lieutenant Miller were hanging back, while First Sergeant Schulen had taken Angie and Rags to their original stop.

The four of them talked amongst each other, sharing memories and inquiring about each other’s wellbeing. Gertrude was glad to hear that while she wouldn’t be able to walk on her own for a while yet, Lieutenant Miller was expected to be out of her wheelchair by the end of the year.

Their conversation came to an amicable end when the trio returned.

“Thanks for being patient with us,” said First Sergeant Schulen.

Captain Wallace reassured her it was fine, then gestured for Gertrude and Zaiga to go next.

“Are you certain, sir?” she asked.

“Yeah. We’re okay with waiting a bit longer.”

The sentiment that even after disbandment, he was looking out for his subordinates, was not lost on them. She tilted her head in appreciation, while Zaiga said, “Thanks, Claude. We’ll try not to be too long.”

They walked to the headstone and settled down once more, Zaiga sitting and her kneeling. They knew what was written on the commemorative marble, but they made sure to read it anyways.

**RAZ  
** **SERGEANT  
** **EDINBURGH ARMY  
** **32ND ARMOURED RANGER CORPS**  
**SECOND EUROPAN WAR  
** **1 MAY 1913 – 28 NOV 1935**

“Hey, bro,” started Zaiga. She heard a small crack in his voice. “It’s been a crazy couple years, huh? One month, we’re hanging out with our guys in Hafen, next we’re being thrown into the meat grinder. And after all the crap we went through, we had to settle for a tie…Guess you can’t win ‘em all.”

“Fight’s not over, though,” he went on. “10 million dead and counting, but the Feds and Imps are already squaring up for another round.”

He snorted to himself, a wry grin forming on his lips.

“And just when I decide that I’m gonna be there to kick their asses in the next war, I’m getting a medical discharge. Can you believe that?”

His boisterous energy trailed off into a melancholy that had become all too familiar, and not just in him.

“When we volunteered for the Feds,” he said softly, “I never thought one of us would leave, while the other stayed. It was always both of us, or neither.”

He’d managed to keep from openly crying earlier. But holding it in was hurting him. So, she hugged him tightly and whispered, “It’s okay.”

He continued, trying to hold back the dam a little longer. “I would’ve given anything just to see you one last time. And when we left Schwarzgrad, I nearly did.”

Then the dam broke, and she saw the tears run down his face. “But I forgot…I forgot I still have guys here. And I almost left the world and people you fought so hard for behind.”

There was a pause, where he gently withdrew from her embrace. He was still crying, but the previous anguish was fading.

“I’m gonna re-enlist. Whatever it takes, I’m gonna work my ass off and make them see I can still fight. But I don’t want to die…not anymore. When the Empire’s gone, when Gallia’s safe, I want to live. And I want to keep fighting for my friends…my family.”

She remembered his initial announcement to her when they were discussing their futures on the _Unrelenting_. It gave her comfort, knowing that not all his attempts to divert her attention from his thoughts had been made with lies, even retroactively. He didn’t need her validation to make his choice, but she gave it nonetheless. She heard a small laugh from him, laced with nostalgia and sorrow, but also gratitude and hope.

“Best times of my life were when I was there with you. Hafen, Lindbergh, the _Centurion_ …we had a damn good run. So, thanks, Raz…for everything.”

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
